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SKETCH BOOKS 


THE PARIS SKETCH BOOK 
OF MR. M. A. TITMARSH 
THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK 
NOTES OF A JOURNEY FROM 
CORNHILL TO GRAND CAIRO 


BY 

K 

WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY 


WITH ILLUSTRATIO)VS BY THE AUTHOR 
AND A PORTRAIT 




NEW YORK AND LONDON 


ERS 



/2-- 3/ £?0g) 


TZ ^ 


i / 10 



; of Co?j ^ 

COPIES RtCtIVED. 

Copyright, 1898, by Harper & Brothers. 
All rights reserved. 

^ \%<^4 


THE BIOGRAPHICAL EDITION 


THE WORKS OF 

WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY 

WITH BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTIONS BY 
HIS DAUGHTER, ANNE RITCHIE 

IN THIRTEEN VOLUMES 

Volume V. 

SKETCH BOOKS 


THE PARIS SKETCH BOOK 
THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK 
NOTES OF A JOURNEY FROM CORNHILL 
TO GRAND CAIRO, Etc. 



^9 


F I , 


T' 




' • 7 "* * 


‘r 



- X 

,«>■•-.- .S . .x' 


'4. 




ii'f- 1 . 










Fubli she d by Harp er 8r Brothe rs . N ew York 


0 


« 




CONTENTS 


PAQE 

INTRODUCTION . , xiii 

THE PARIS SKETCH BOOK 

DEDICATION ......... 3 

ADVERTISEMENT ........ 5 

AN INVASION OF FRANCE ...... 7 

A CAUTION TO TRAVELLERS . . . . . .18 

THE FETES OF JULY . . . . . . . 33 

ON THE FRENCH SCHOOL OF PAINTING . . . .41 

THE painter’s BARGAIN ....... 58 

CARTOUCHE ......... 70 

ON SOME FRENCH FASHIONABLE NOVELS . . . .80 

A gambler’s DEATH ....... 98 

NAPOLEON AND HIS SYSTEM . ... . . .107 

THE STORY OF MARY ANCEL . . . .. . .119 

BEATRICE MERGER . . . . . . . .136 

CARICATURES AND LITHOGRAPHY IN PARIS . . .142 

LITTLE POINSINET . . . . . . . .166 

THE devil’s WAGER . . . . . . .178 

MADAME SAND AND THE NEW APOCALYPSE . . .187 

THE CASE OF PEYTEL ....... 209 

FRENCH DRAMAS AND 3IELODRAMAS . . . . .235 

MEDITATIONS AT VERSAILLES . . . . . .253 


VI 11 


CONTENTS 


THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK OF 1842 

PAGE 

DEDICATION ........ . 269 

CHAP. 

I. A SUMMEK DAY IN DUBLIN, Oil THERE AND 

THEREABOUTS . . . . . .271 

II. A COUNTRY-HOUSE IN KILDARE — SKETCHES OF 

AN IRISH FAMILY AND FARM . . .291 

III. FROM CARLOW TO WATERFORD .... 300 

IV. FROM WATERFORD TO CORK . . . .310 

V. CORK — THE AGRICULTURAL SHOW FATHER 

MATHEW ....... 320 

VI. CORK THE URSULINE CONVENT .... 328 

VII. CORK ......... 336 

VIII. FROM CORK TO BANTRY ; WITH AN ACCOUNT OF 

THE CITY OF SKIBBEREEN .... 347 

IX. RAINY DAYS AT GLENGARIFF .... 357 

X. FROM GLENGARIFF TO KILLARNEY . . .363 

XI. KILLARNEY STAG-HUNTING ON THE LAKE . . 371 

XII. KILLARNEY — THE RACES — MUCKROSS . . .377 

XIII. TRALEE LISTOWEL — TARBERT .... 385 

XIV. LIMERICK . . . . . . . .391 

XV. GALWAY “ KILROY’s HOTEL ” GALWAY NIGHTS’ 

ENTERTAINMENTS FIRST NIGHT I AN EVENING 

WITH CAPTAIN FREENY .... 403 

XVI. MORE RAIN IN GALWAY A WALK THERE AND 

THE SECOND GALWAY NIGHT’S ENTERTAIN- 
MENT ........ 420 

XVII. FROM GALWAY TO BALLINAHINCH . . . 444 

XVIII. ROUNDSTONE PETTY SESSIONS .... 455 


CONTENTS 


CUAP. 

XIX. 

XX. 

XXI. 

XXII. 

XXIII. 

XXIY. 

XXV. 


XXVI. 

XXVII. 

XXVIII. 

XXIX. 

XXX. 

XXXI. 

XXXII. 


PAGE 

CLIFDEN TO WESTPORT . . , . .459 

WESTPORT ....... 465 

THE PATTERN AT CROAGHPATRICK . . .470 

FROM AVESTPORT TO BALLINASLOE . . .474 

BALLINASLOE TO DUBLIN . . . . .478 

TWO DAYS IN AVICKLOW ..... 483 

COUNTRY MEETINGS IN KILDARE MEATH 

DROGHEDA ...... 498 

DUNDALK . ...... 510 

NEAVRY, ARMAGH, BELFAST — FROM DUNDALK TO 

NEAVRY ....... 523 

BELFAST TO THE CAUSEAA'AY . . . .534 

THE giant’s CAUSEAVAY COLERAINE PORTRUSII 543 

PEG OF LIMAVADDY ...... 554 

TEMPLEMOYLE DERRY . . . .560 

DUBLIN AT LAST . . . . . .572 


NOTES OF A JOURNEY FROM CORNHILL 
TO GRAND CAIRO 


DEDICATION 

PREFACE 

CHAP. 


I. VIGO ...... 

II. LISBON CADIZ ..... 

III. THE “lady MARY AA'OOD ” 

IV. GIBRALTAR ..... 

V. ATHENS ...... 

VI. SMYRNA — FIRST GLIMPSES OF THE EAST 

VII. CONSTANTINOPLE .... 


585 

587 

589 

595 

603 

609 

620 

628 

636 


X 


CONTENTS 




CHAP. 

VIII. 

RHODES 




PAGE 

. 654 

IX. 

THE WHITE 

SQUALL 



. 661 

X. 

TELMESSUS — 

■BEYROUT 



665 

XI. 

A DAY AND 

NIGHT IN SYRIA 



. 672 

XII. 

FROM JAFFA 

TO JERUSALEM . 



. 679 

XIII. 

JERUSALEM 

. 



. 687 

XIV. 

FROM JAFFA 

TO ALEXANDRIA 



. 704 

XV. 

TO CAIRO 

. 



. 710 



SULTAN STORK 




PART 

THE FIRST 

* • • • • 


• 

. 737 

PART 

THE SECOND 



• 

745 

DICKENS IN FRANCE 



. 753 


LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 


PORTRAIT OF W. M. THACKERAY . 

• 

• 

• 

Frontispiece 







PAGE 

VIEW IN A CERTAIN 

CITY . 





xvii 

MARIE ANCEL 

. 





xix 

PRIEST READING HIS 

BREVIARY . 





XX 

FRIAR AND DEMON 






xxi 

CHAMBERMAID 






xxiv 

JAMES II. . 






XXV 

ARTIST AT WORK 






xxxi 

PRIEST AND PEASANT 






xxxiv 

DECK . 






xxxvii 

SHAVING SCENE . 






xxxviii 

SLEEPING TRAVELLER 






xxxix 

SIESTA IN TREE . 






xli 

SIESTA 






xli 


THE PARIS SKETCH BOOK 


PARIS SKETCHES .... 

• 

• 

To face 2 ^Gige 

6 

MR. POGSON’S temptations . 

• 

• 

3J 

20 

A PUZZLE FOR THE DEVIL . 

. 

. 

5) 

66 

CARTOUCHE .... 

• 

• 

33 

78 

HOW TO ASTONISH THE FRENCH 


. 

33 

82 


Xll 


LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 


THE CHEAP DEFENCE OF NATIONS . 

. To face page 

no 

MARY ANCEL ..... 

• 

n 

120 

POINSINET IN DISGUISE 

• 


170 

THE CHAPLAIN PUZZLED 

• 


184 

FRENCH CATHOLICISM .... 

• 


188 

THE GALLERY AT DEBURAU’s THEATRE SKETCHED 



FROM NATURE .... 

• 

55 

244 

LUDOVICUS REX ..... 

• 

55 

260 

THE IRISH SKETCH 

BOOK 



A CAR TO KILLARNEY .... 

- 

55 

364 

THE MARKET AT KILLARNEY 

• 

55 

372 

A ROW TO THE GIANT’s CAUSEWAY 

* 

55 

544 


A JOURNEY FROM CORNHILL TO GRAND CAIRO 

A STREET VIEW AT CONSTANTINOPLE . . To face page 636 


INTEODUCTION 


TO 

SKETCH BOOKS 


1840-1846 

I 

PAKIS SKETCH BOOK 

Time flies, but the great wings come beating backwards again 
as one looks over the records of the days that were, and which 
indeed are also now, and not in the past only. 

There is no need to dwell at any great length upon the time 
which my father spent at Paris after he left London and his 
home and his work. He was almost alone ; his parents had 
been called away by family affairs ; my baby-sister and I were 
deposited with our great-grandmother, Mrs. Butler, who cer- 
tainly thought us inconveniently young. But we had a friend ; 
a faithful and loving-hearted Scotch nurse, called Jessie Brodie, 
who rather than quit my father in his troubles at that time, 
broke off her own marriage, so she told me shyly, long years 
after. She helped my father to nurse my mother at first, then 
he left her in charge of the nursery, and removed from his 
grandmother’s in order to be nearer to doctors. 

One cure after another was prescribed, foreign baths and 
home treatment in turn, all of which my father saw carried out, 
but of course the expenses were great. So was the anxiety, 
and the diflBculty of earning an income to meet it all. 

I can remember being taken to see him in his lodgings, early 
of a morning. Very often he was dressing, and it was a privi- 
lege to see him shave, better still to watch him drawing pict- 


XIV 


SKETCH BOOKS 


ures or tearing little processions of pigs with curly tails out of 
paper. Sometimes he was writing, and to my surprise and an- 
noyance could not tear out little pigs. 

Among the letters from my father to Mrs. Procter in Mr. 
George M. Smith’s possession there is one dated from Paris, in 
January 1841: “Our Milnes, who is going away to-morrow, 
will, 1 hope, bear this with him : it is only to thank you for 
writing so kindly to me, who have had so many troubles of late 
as to be very glad of, and sigh for, sympathy and consolation. 

. . . I found my letter, when half done, did not contain a word 
of sympathy for you, and only a long, selfish account of my 
own particular sorrows, and so tore it up. Don’t be angry if I 
tell you that on reading your letter I felt glad that somebody 
else was miserable and lonely. 

“ Thank you for your kind pains about the book,” he con- 
tinues. “ I have seen many reviews of it, an important work 
that was compiled in four days, the ballad being added to it as 
an after-thought : it is the deuce that poetry — or rhymes — and 
never was an unfortunate fellow so plagued. For a whole week 
you would have fancied me a real poet, having all the exterior 
marks of one — with a week’s beard, a great odour of tobacco, a 
scowling, ferocious, thoughtful appearance. I used to sit all 
day meditating, nail-biting, and laboriously producing about 
twenty lines in twelve hours. Are all poets in this way ? How 
wise Procter was to leave poetry for the gay science of law, in 
which a fellow has but to lie back in a Windsor chair and read 
interesting cases and settlements, with ‘five guineas’ written 
on the title-page. I hope ‘ Titmarsh ’ will produce as much ! 

“ How well the Times found him out ! The article is very 
smart, I think, and complimentary too, and best of all, will make 
people curious to get the book. I have 7-|d. out of each half- 
crown. 

£ s. cl 

100 copies . 750 pence . 3 2 6 

1000 “ . 7500 “ . 31 5 0 

10,000 “ . 75,000 “ . 312 10 0 

100,000 “ , 750,000 “ . 3125 0 0 

“ One hundred copies have already been sold, so that you 
see my fortune is very clear.” 


INTRODUCTION 


XV 


Mr. FitzGerald writing to his friend W. H. Thompson, says, 
in February 1841: “Have you read Thackeray’s little book, 
‘The Second Funeral of Napoleon’? If not, pray do; and 
buy it, and ask others to buy it, as each copy sold puts 7-Jd. in 
T.’s pocket, which is very empty just now, I take it. 1 think 
the book is the best thing he has done.” 

Once more writing to Mrs, Procter, in March, my father says 
of his own last letter to her : “ Indeed, it was written by a very 
miserable fellow, who was quite unaccustomed to that kind of 
mood, and is not a whit happier now, only he bears his griefs 
more composedly. What won’t a man bear with a little prac- 
tice? — ruin, blindness, his legs off, dishonour, death of dearest 
friend, and what not. As the cares multiply — I don’t know 
whether this sentence is left unfinished, because I don’t know 
how to finish it, or because it is a shame to begin such disser- 
tations to a lady who merits more grateful treatment from me.” 

Then he goes on to tell her that he has just been compli- 
mented on his new novel of “ Cecil.” 

“O just punishment of vanity ! How I wish I had written 
it, not for the book’s sake, but for the filthy money, which I 
love better than fame. The fact is, I am about a wonderful 
romance, and I long for the day when the three volumes shall 
be completed.” (If this romance was that well-known one 
without a hero, it did not finally come out for seven years, dur- 
inof which how many other ventures are there not to be counted !) 

In one letter, written about this time, he says, in reply to a 
hospitable invitation from the Procters : “ It is almost wortli a 
man’s while to be downcast and unhappy for a time, that he 
may get his friends’ kindness and sympathy. * He relishes it 
so, and I think the liking for it remains afterwards — at least 
now I feel a hundred per cent, happier than when I got your of- 
fer, and enjoy it really as much almost as if I had accepted it.” 

And once more, writing in June 1841: “Please wdien you 
write not to give me any account whatever of any gaieties in 
which you indulge, or any sort of happiness falling to the share 
of you or anybody else. But if anybody meets with an acci- 
dent, is arrested, ruined, has a wife run away with, if C. falls 
ill and is marked with the smallpox, do be so kind as to write 
me off word immediately, and I will pay the post cheerfully. 


XVI 


SKETCH BOOKS 


The only welcome intelligence in your letter is that the Austins 
have lost a good deal of money, and Procter £1100. . . . De- 
spair, madam, is the word. Byronish, I hate mankind, and 
wear my shirt-collar turned down. . . . 

“ This week, for the first time these six months, I determined 
to try and amuse myself at the play, and paid twenty-five sous 
like a man, and went to the pit to see Mademoiselle Dejazet. 
This young creature, who is neither so innocent nor so good- 
looking as Vestris, but, on the other hand, incomparably older 
and cleverer, chose to act the part of a young girl of sixteen, in 
a little muslin frock and pinafore, with trousers and long braided 
hair like the Misses Keiiwigs ; when this hideous, leering, grin- 
ning, withered wretch came forward, do you know, I was seized 
with such a qualm, as to shout out, ‘ Why, she is too ugly !’ 
and I was obliged to stride over 10,000 people in a most crowd- 
ed pit in order to get rid of the sight of her. . . .” 

And then going back to the Procters’ own affairs, he says : 
“ Well, I am really sorry now that the master of the house has 
lost his money, having arrived at a good humour by writing six 
pages of nonsense and thinking about all the kindness and pleas- 
ure I have had from you. I find I have been writing on a torn half- 
sheet of paper. Will you pardon me for taking such liberties ? 

“ . . . I have to ask another pardon for introducing my friend 
O’D. to you. He has a thousand of the very best qualities, but 
not the most necessary one of being pleasant. Alfred Tennyson, 
if he can’t make you like him, will make you admire him, — he 
seems to me to have the cachet of a great man ; his conversation 
is often delightful I think, full of breadth, manliness, and humour ; 
he reads all sorts of things, swallows them, and digests them like 
a great poetical boa-constrictor as he is. Now I hope, Mrs. Proc- 
ter, you will recollect that if your humble servant sneers at small 
geniuses, he has, on the contrary, a huge respect for big ones. 
Perhaps it is Alfred Tennyson’s great big yellow face and growl- 
ing voice that have made an impression on me ; manliness and 
simplicity of manner go a great way with me, I fancy. . . . Was 
there ever such a stupid letter, full of nonsensical egotism ? As 
for the dingy state of the paper, I have only got a little table 
three feet by two, and as there are a bundle of manuscript, a 
bottle of ink that will upset, a paint-box and water, several dry 


VIEW IN A CERTAIN CITY 


1 




INTRODUCTION xvii 



5 


h 



cigars, sealing-wax, the whole of my menage ; so sure as this let- 
ter is discontinued for a moment, so sure does it tumble into a 
puddle of ink, or another of water, or into a heap of ashes: well, 
I have not the courage to clear the table, nor indeed to do an}^- 
thiug else, and truth to tell, am quite beaten down. I don’t know 
when I shall come round again ; not until I get a holiday, and 
that mayn’t be for months to come. Meanwhile I can^t work, 
nor write even amusing letters, nor talk of anything else but 
myself, which is bearable sometimes when Ego is in very good 
health and spirits, but odious beyond measure when he has only 
to entertain you with his woes. 

“ Yesterday I had a delightful walk with a painter to St. Ger- 
mains, through charming, smiling countries that seemed to be 
hundreds of leagues away from cities. Psha ! this sentence 
was begun with a laudable intent of relieving you from the 
wearisome complaints of the last paragraph, but it is in vain. 
Allow me then, dear Mrs. Procter, to shut up the scrawl alto- 
gether, and to give a loose rein to dulness in privacy — it can’t 
be enjoyed properly in company — in spite of which I am always 
yours and Procter’s, W. M. T.” 

Writing to his mother in the same year : “ I am getting dread- 
fully bitten with my old painting mania,” he says, “ and as soon 
as I have written that famous book you know of, and made a few 
hundred pounds, make a vow to the great gods that I will try 
the thing once more. ‘ Titmarsh’ has sold 140 copies, and be 
hanged to it — the donkeys of a public don’t know a good thing 
when they get it. It has, however, been hugely praised by the 
Press, and will serve to keep my name up, though a failure. 
Then you know that General Moreau, when he retreated through 
the Black Forest; General Moore, General Massena, and others, 
made themselves illustrious by their reverses. Fiddlestick ! what’s 
the use of writing such stuff to you ? — all the result of this in- 
fernal iron pen. . . . Such a man of an engraver as I have found ! 
I wish you could see him. He is about thirty-eight, has not a 
spark of genius, works fourteen hours a day, never breakfasts 
except off cheese and bread in his atelier, dines in the same way, 
never goes out, makes about 3000 francs a year, has a wife and 
child, and is happy the whole day long ; the whole home is like 


INTRODUCTION xix 

a cage of canaries, nothing but singing from night till morning. 
It goes to my heart to hear his little wife singing at her work. 
What noble characters does one light on in little nooks of this 
great world !” 

“ Comic Tales and Sketches” belong to 1841, and were pub- 
lished by Hugh Cunningham, who also brought out “ The Sec- 
ond Funeral of Napoleon.” The “ Paris Sketch Book” had been 



MARIE ANGEL. 

published the previous year by Macrone, who was also godfather 
to another first book by a young author, called “Sketches by Boz.” 

Some pretty drawings which must have been made for the 
“ Paris Sketch Book,” do not seem to have been used at the 
time. Here is a Marie Ancel, the heroine of the story about 


XX 


SKETCH BOOKS 


the French Revolution, and a picture of a priest reading his 
breviary. The Friar and the demon seem also to belong to the 
story of the Devil’s Wager in the “ Paris Sketch Book.” 

Mr. Titmarsh was for ever observing and recording what he 
saw. He wrote it down, and he drew the pictures and sketches — 
specially the sketches — abroad, where shadows are crisper than 
with us, and houses are quainter, and the people and the scenes 



PRIEST READING HIS BREVIARY. 

more pleasantly varied. Our curates are curates, but they do 
not wear the romantic pastoral robes of the Catholic cures, nor 
such religious hats with curly brims. 

The note-books of those days are full of memoranda and sug- 
gestions for stories and articles. My father was reading and 
writing unceasingly ; he was occupied with foreign literature, 
but he kept up his interest in the English Press and in English 


INTRODUCTION 


XXI 


books — g Q < » 4 ^ tin e’easHTgty 7 ■ he was-occupied with foreigrrditera- 
tiu:ey-but- he kept up his interest in the 'English Press and m 
English hooks — good, bad, indifferent ; everything was sug- 
gestive, and had a meaning for him. 



PRIEST AND DEMON. 

Here is one day’s history out of an old diary : — 

“ Drew all the morning, or else read Marryat’s ‘Joseph Rush- 


XXll 


SKETCH BOOKS 


brook,’ a good-riatiired, manly sort of book. Walked with Isa- 
bella by the Park de Monceaux, looking green and pretty, and 
on the plain of Monceaux, hearing the steam-engines. After 
dinner talked to my wife, and read article on Bowes’ election. 
Found in my portfolio an article written two months ago, of 
which the existence was completely forgotten, and saw more and 
more the utility of keeping some memorandum. Wrote till 
twelve, and thought of a good plan for some weekly paper arti- 
cles. The Morning Post was very flattering to ‘ Men and Coats.’ ” 

And then come lists of books, and more books, and of authors 
too — Emile Souvestre, Capefigue, Louis Blanc, Gallois, Le Croise 
<le Bigorre, Saintine’s story of “ La Vierge de Fribourg,” &c. &c. 
“Good idea; a love story interwoven with a tour. Something 
might be done with the Belgian letters, perhaps in this way. 

‘ L’Hotel des Invalides,’ by M. St. Hilaire ; ‘ Le Capitaine Bleu,’ 
an excellent story in vol. ii. A young fellow of great spirit, with 
a tinge of madness in his composition, and a mania for flghting 
duels. He has a friend who is equally celebrated. They meet 
after a long absence, and fight out of fun at first. The Captain 
kills his friend, excited by a red cloak which he wears. Here- 
after he forswears red, dresses himself in blue from head to foot. 
In a cafe he prevents two young officers from flghting. One 
of them to whom he tells his story turns out to be the son of 
the friend he had killed. The young man insists on a meeting 
and is killed, and the Captain goes stark mad.” 

W. M. T. to E. FitzGerald in 1842. 

“ I have read no good books or novels to talk of, but scores of 
volumes of history, in the most owl-like, solemn way, and by way 
of amusement, Victor Hugo’s new book on the Rhine. He is 
very great, and writes like a God Almighty. About this book 
I’ve been trying to write to-day, and only squeezed out one page. 
Hugo says some fine things — viz., looking at the stars, he says 
that night is, as it were, the normal colour of heaven. There 
is something awful in it — a dark-blue eternity, glittering all over 
with silent, watchful stars. Is it nonsense, or the contrary ? I 
know what Venables would say — that the dark blue is all gam- 
mon, being an optical effect, and so on ; but still it’s rather 
awful, and I feel certain that Time and Space are dark blue.” 


INTRODUCTION 


XXlll 


II 

THE miSH SKETCH BOOK 

1842-1843 

It was in the summer of 1842 that he went over from France 
to Ireland and wTote the “ Irish Sketch Book,” which was the 
first of his publications that came out under his own name. “ It 
contains passages graver than his wont,” writes a friendly critic, 
who goes on to say that he was at last beginning to make his 
mark. “ Thackeray’s was not a mind that could be long at work 
without the world perceiving that a strong man had come.” My 
father was a strong man ; but he had a heavy burden to bear, 
and not for many months did his spirits revive, though all the 
time, his natural buoyancy and love of humorous things as- 
suredly helped to carry him forward. He sometimes seems al- 
most to reproach himself for being distracted and amused by 
the fancy of the moment. 

Later on I shall have occasion to write more of Edward Fitz- 
Gerald, whose faithful goodness seems to have been his constant 
resource in these days, and to whom he writes a first letter from 
Ireland. It was sent to me (with others) by Colonel Kerrich 
after Mr. FitzGerald’s death. 

“ Stephen’s Green, Dublin, July 4 , 1842 . 

“ My dear old Edward, — I am just come, after a delight- 
ful tour, to Chepstow, Bristol, Hereford, Shrewsbury, Chester, 
Liverpool, Llangollen, and Wales in general. I found your 
dismal letter waiting on arrival here. What the deuce are you 
in the dumps for ? Don’t flatter yourself but that I’ll get on 
very well without you. Such a place as this hotel is itself enough 
to make a chapter about, such filth and liberality. O my dear 
friend, pray heaven on bended knee that to-night when I go to 
bed I find no * * * Turn over. Have you ever remarked that 
the little ones of all sting worst?” 


XXIV 


SKETCH BOOKS 


“ I wanted to give you an idea of the splendour of the chamber- 
maid. I wrote a poem in the Llangollen album, as follows:— 

‘ A better glass, nor a better pipe, 

I never had in all my life.’ 

— Samuel Rogers. 

Likewise a series of remarks by Thomas Moore, beginning, ‘There 
is a little golden bird frequenting the cataracts of the Nile where 



CHAMBERMAID. 


it empties itself into the Tabreez Lake.’ . . . Wliat nonsense is 
all this to write, but I just wanted, however far, to shake hands 
with somebody across the water. Your uncle’s letter I’ve sent 
off with my card, pronounced kyard — stuff — there I go again. — 
Well ! — there I go again — it is a queer state of mind, to be sure.’ ” 

To his mother he writes later on : “ My last letter was put 


INTRODUCTION 


XXV 


into the post on my way to see ’s brother, in County Meatl), 

the honestest, best creature that ever was born. I stopped with 
him three days, on one of them going* to see Trim, which is near 
Laracor, which is the place where Swift’s living was; on another 
to see Slane Castle, a beautiful mansion belonging to my Lord 
Conyngham ; and on another to the Boyne Water, where per- 
haps you have heard King William defeated King James. 

“ ’s benevolence would have done you good to witness. 

He thanked his coachman for driving us, his footman for bring- 
ing in the tea-urn, and seemed to be bubbling over with good 
humour and good-will towards man. His wife made me a pres- 
ent of ‘ Wiseman’s Lectures,’ hearing me say I should like to 
read them.” 

We have this authentic portrait of King James at the battle 
of the Boyne, which may be not unappropriately inserted here. 



JAMES II. 


1 think one of the pleasantest incidents of my father’s visit 
to Ireland was a visit to Elias Thackeray, the Vicar of Dun- 
dalk, of whom he ever spoke with affection. 

The Vicar’s picture was taken in 1842. He is painted sit- 
ting in a stiff arm-chair ; he has a keen, plain, benevolent face ; 
there is an open window, through which one sees a smiling 
prospect, and a portrait of his steeple also. 

Here is my father’s account of the hospitable Vicai*: “‘Sir,’ 


XXVI 


SKETCH BOOKS 


says he, ‘ no person bearing the name of Thackeray must go 
through Dundalk without sleeping at my house,’ . . . and there 
the old gentleman ordered his curate to come and dine with 
me, and amused me all day, taking me to infant schools, hos- 
pitals, and institutions. Well, they were all delightful to see, 
especially the infant schools : God bless them ! and the little 
ones singing in a way that makes the sternest ruffians cry. We 
went one day to Thackeray’s living of Louth, the best in Ire- 
land ; it was worth £3000 a year, but now only half, but 1500 
or 3000, the man never has a shilling at the year’s end, and has 
no expenses or extravagances of his own, and the rest goes to 
schools, hospitals, and the poor. I am sure God Almighty 
Himself must be pleased to look down on honest Elias Thack- 
eray ; and when 1 hear of human depravity as applied to him 
and some others, can’t believe it for the soul of me.” 

Writing to the same Vicar, my father describes his visit to 
x\rmagh and to its cathedral. “The service was nobly per- 
formed, better than anywhere in England, that is a fact. I 
looked with a great deal of interest at the Primate and his 
benevolent face, after all the good things you had told me of 
him. Chantrey’s statue of Primate Stewart is beautiful, and I 
did not fail to spy out the Thackeray cherub in the painted 
window. I wonder how the angels got into our family ?” 

“ The world holds one good man the less,” he wrote many 
years after to Martin Thackeray, “now your good brother has 
left it, after a life so noble, useful, and pious. I have always 
thought him one of the most fortunate of men ; to have such a 
career, and such peculiar qualities suiting him for it — activity, 
benevolence, simplicity, faith, unselfishness, immense esteem 
from all round about him, who could not but love and honour 
him ; what man could wish for a better fate in life ; and if he 
was lucky here, he is now even more to be envied ! The good 
deeds of his long life bear interest yonder. . . . One would 
never think of being sorry for the death of such a man; at 
such years it was time that he should go and reap the fruit of 
his life. So I do not offer to condole with you on your brother’s 
death ; but I know you will believe in the sincere affection and 
honour in wdiicli I hold his memory, and that I like to think 
that such a man bore our name.” 


INTRODUCTION 


XXVll 


My father’s spirits vary very much. There is a letter, cheerful 
and revived, following a visit to Mr. Peter Purcell : “ Notliing 
but laughing and sunshine from morning till night along the 
road ; and when I parted from them, I felt as if I had known 
them all my life, and indeed I think I shall be sincerely at- 
tached to them for the rest of it. ... I have breakfasted with 
Father Mathew, a fine fellow, simple, straightforward, manly, 
and with one idea : he never lets a chance slip to get a convert, 
and says he would rather convert Peter Purcell than any other 
man in Ireland.” 

Writing again of the Purcells, my father says, “ Such people 
are not to be met with more than a few times in a man’s 
life.” 

His spirits flagged again towards the end of his journey. 
“ Have you remarked how stupid my letters are ?” he says to 
his mother. “ Solitude creates a muzziness and incoherency in 
me, and I must get back to the little ones, that is clear. I am 
never thinking of what I am writing about. All the time I was 
writing of Thackeray, there was something else in my thoughts, 
and so on. Oh, I am glad the end of my trip is at hand. I 
have been heart-weary for months past, that’s the truth. I in- 
tended to have addressed the remainder of this, just for the 
look of the thing, from the Giant’s Causeway, but the place 
was so awful and lonely, I fled from it, after a couple of hours’ 
visit, to sea-sickness in an infernal boat, trembling and sprawl- 
ing among rocks afterwards, and a lonely dinner at an hotel, a 
huge place with not a soul in it, the last company being a corpse 
which had just gone. I think the ghost was there still, and I 
got out of the place in a panic. 

“ The drive from Belfast along the coast was magnificent, 
and I never enjoyed anything more in my life ; but I think I 
shall enjoy a drive to St. Germains still more. Meanwhile I 
dream of you and the little ones every night, which, to be sure, 
is not much comfort. I shall have done five-sixths of the book 
by the time I am with you on the 1st of November.” 

“ Peg of Limavaddy ” came out in the “ Irish Sketch Book.” 
One can feel the shadow in the poem as well as the sunshine of 
it, and the courage and sweetness of the temper which enabled 
him to write it : 


XXVI 


SKETCH BOOKS 


says he, ‘ no person bearing the name of Thackeray must go 
through Dundalk without sleeping at my house,’ . . . and there 
the old gentleman ordered his curate to come and dine with 
me, and amused me all day, taking me to infant schools, hos- 
pitals, and institutions. Well, they were all delightful to see, 
especially the infant schools : God bless them ! and the little 
ones singing in a way that makes the sternest ruffians cry. We 
went one day to Thackeray’s living of Louth, the best in Ire- 
land ; it was worth £3000 a year, but now only half, but 1500 
or 3000, the man never has a shilling at the year’s end, and has 
no expenses or extravagances of his own, and the rest goes to 
schools, hospitals, and the poor. I am sure God Almighty 
Himself must be pleased to look down on honest Elias Thack- 
eray ; and when 1 hear of human depravity as applied to him 
and some others, can’t believe it for the soul of me.” 

Writing to the same Vicar, my father describes his visit to 
Armagh and to its cathedral. “The service was nobly per- 
formed, better than anywhere in England, that is a fact. I 
looked with a great deal of interest at the Primate and his 
benevolent face, after all the good things you had told me of 
him. Chantrey’s statue of Primate Stewart is beautiful, and I 
did not fail to spy out the Thackeray cherub in the painted 
window. I wonder how the angels got into our family ?” 

“ The world holds one good man the less,” he wrote many 
years after to Martin Thackeray, “now your good brother has 
left it, after a life so noble, useful, and pious. I have always 
thought him one of the most fortunate of men ; to have such a 
career, and such peculiar qualities suiting him for it — activity, 
benevolence, simplicity, faith, unselfishness, immense esteem 
from all round about him, who could not but love and honour 
him ; what man could wish for a better fate in life ; and if he 
was lucky here, he is now even more to be envied ! The good 
deeds of his long life bear interest yonder. . . . One would 
never think of being sorry for the death of such a man; at 
such years it was time that he should go and reap the fruit of 
his life. So I do not offer to condole with you on your brother’s 
death ; but I know you will believe in the sincere affection and 
honour in which I hold his memory, and that I like to think 
that such a man bore our name.” 


INTRODUCTION 


XXVll 


My father’s spirits vary very much. There is a letter, cheerful 
and revived, following a visit to Mr. Peter Purcell : “ Nothing 
but laughing and sunshine from morning till night along the 
road ; and when I parted from them, I felt as if I had known 
them all my life, and indeed I think I shall be sincerely at- 
tached to them for the rest of it. ... I have breakfasted with 
Father Mathew, a fine fellow, simple, straightforward, manly, 
and with one idea : he never lets a chance slip to get a convert, 
and says he would rather convert Peter Purcell than any other 
man in Ireland.” 

Writing again of the Purcells, my father says, “ Such people 
are not to be met with more than a few times in a man’s 
life.” 

His spirits flagged again towards the end of his journey. 
“ Have you remarked how stupid my letters are ?” he says to 
his mother. “ Solitude creates a muzziness and incoherency in 
me, and I must get back to the little ones, that is clear. I am 
never thinking of what I am writing about. All the time I was 
writing of Thackeray, there was something else in my thoughts, 
and so on. Oh, I am glad the end of my trip is at hand. I 
have been heart-weary for months past, that’s the truth. I in- 
tended to have addressed the remainder of this, just for the 
look of the thing, from the Giant’s Causeway, but the place 
was so awful and lonely, I fled from it, after a couple of hours’ 
visit, to sea-sickness in an infernal boat, trembling and sprawl- 
ing among rocks afterwards, and a lonely dinner at an hotel, a 
huge place with not a soul in it, the last company being a corpse 
which had just gone. I think the ghost was there still, and I 
got out of the place in a panic. 

“ The drive from Belfast along the coast was magnificent, 
and I never enjoyed anything more in my life ; but I think I 
shall enjoy a drive to St. Germains still more. Meanwhile I 
dream of you and the little ones every night, which, to be sure, 
is not much comfort. I shall have done five-sixths of the book 
by the time I am with you on the 1st of November.” 

“ Peg of Limavaddy ” came out in the “ Irish Sketch Book.” 
One can feel the shadow in the poem as well as the sunshine of 
it, and the courage and sweetness of the temper which enabled 
him to write it ; 


SKETCH BOOKS 


xxviii 

“Came a Cockney bound 
Unto Derry city; 

Weary was his soul, 

Shivering and sad he 
Bumped along the road 
Leads to Limavaddy. 

Mountains stretch’d around, 

Gloomy was their tinting. 

And the horse’s hoofs 
Made a dismal dinting. 

Mid the bogs of black, 

Silver pools were flashing. 

Crows upon their sides 

Picking were and splashing. 

Through the crashing woods 
Autumn brawl’d and bluster’d. 

Tossing round about 

Leaves the hue of mustard ; 

Yonder lay Lough Foyle, 

Which a storm was whipping. 

Covering with mist 

Lake, and shores, and shipping.” 

What a picture it all drives of Ireland, and of my father’s 
journey there ! “ Weary was his soul, shivering and sad he.” 

But though he complained for once, I think it was only to make 
a rhyme to Limavaddy, and the little idyll winds up with a gay 
and charming picture when Peg appears upon the scene : 

“ Hebe’s self I thought 
Enter’d the apartment. 

As she came she smiled. 

And the smile bewitching, 

On my word and honour. 

Lighted all the kitchen !” 

Only a few days ago a lady came to see me, who told me 
that she, as a child, could remember my fatlier in Ireland com- 
ing to her father’s home ; and Dr. Lever being invited to meet 
him there, with a number of other people. The “ Irish Sketch 
Book” is dedicated to Charles Lever, and among the old papers 


I N T R O D U C 1 0 N 


XXIX 


I find the first dedication, written in niy father’s handwriting. 
The published version is cut down, but the other is so interest- 
ing, that I give it as it was originally written : — 

“TO CHARLES LEVER. 

“ t have ventured to place your name on the dedication page 
of these little volumes, though they contain much of which the 
Editor of the Dublin University Magazines will not approve. 
But the duties of that personage begin with the next page; let 
me devote this to the friend whose kindness rendered a stay in 
Dublin so pleasant to me. 

“ It was pleasant in travelling through the country to see in a 
thousand humble windows the familiar pink wrapper which cov- 
ers the gallant adventures of Harry Lorrequer and Tom Burke; to 
hear their merits canvassed by rich and poor ; and to find that 
there was, at any rate, one subject in Ireland about which parties 
were disposed to agree. While political patriots are exposing 
the wrongs under which the people labour, and telling them as in 
duty bound to quarrel for their rights, you have found a ha[)py 
neutral ground, whither you lead them to repose between their 
quarrels, and where you keep a nation in good humour. 

“ In the honour of their craft, all literary men are surely bound 
to admire your kind of patriotism and its effects ; and if those 
visionary red-coats of yours could teach a little of their hearty 
good-will and charity to certain substantial Irishmen in black, 
would the reverend and learned gentleman, think you, be the 
worse for novel reading ?” 

The “ Irish Sketch Book” came out in 1843, and as usual E. 
F. G. writes to a friend, bidding him call at 39 Portland Place 
and ask for the two volumes. “ It is all true,” he says. 

“ The book is going pretty well,” my father writes ; “ The Irish 
are in a rage about it, the Irish acquaintance. ‘ Boz ’ has written 
me a letter of compliments, and the literary people like it gen- 
erally very much ; not, I am afraid. White, who promises to re- 
view it in Blackwood^ and pulled a very long face the other day 
when I met him. He did not say a word, however, and perhaps 
it was only my nervousness which saw the long face.” 


XXX 


SKETCH HOOKS 


III 

CORN HILL TO CAIRO 

1844-1846 

As far back as 1835 the author of “Cornhill to Cairo” first 
thought of going to the East. He had been reading books about 
Mahomet ; and the Orient was the fashion in those days. Per- 
liaps a few Sultanas might have been tied up in sacks by jealous 
Sultans, but atrocities were not as yet, and a romantic glamour 
lay upon the land. 

Writing in September 1835 from the Rue des Beaux Arts, at 
the time when he was living with his painter friends, he tries to 
persuade his cousin, William Ritchie, to accompany him. “ I 
look forward with a good deal of pleasure to my trip. I am sure 
it would do you more good to come with me than all the univer- 
sities in Christendom. I purpose going from Marseilles to Venice 
by what I hear is the most magnificent road in the world, then 
from Venice — if I can effect the thing — I will pass over for a 
week or so into Turkey, just to be able to say in a book I am 
going to make that I have been there, after which I will go to 
Rome, Naple.s, Florence, &c. . . . Then I will go to England, book 
in hand — I will get three hundred guineas for my book ; then 1 
will exhibit at the Water-Colour Society, and sell my ten draw- 
ings forthwith ; then I will ” (Here follows a picture of 

Perette and the jug of milk.) 

The expedition did not come off then. It was not until 1844, 
after nine years had passed, along with a whole lifetime of sor- 
rowful experience, that my father was able to carry out his dream. 

Whatever may be the case now, an author’s profession used not 
to be all plain sailing then, even with his position established, and 
his work finished and in black and white on the paper before him. 

Here is an extract from a letter to an editor, dated Champs 
Elysees, Feb. 2, 1844 : — 


INTRODUCTION 


XXXI 


“ Oil giving you my manuscript, I gave it with tlie express 
stipulation that unless an immediate payment was made for it, it 
was not to be used ; and you promised me specifically that in 
sending the manuscript to , you would acquaint him with 



ARTIST AT WORK. 

that condition on my part. The manuscript has been used : the 
jiroofs come back with many compliments — but I cannot pay my 
tradesmen with them ; and beg to state what I before said, that 

I will do nothing without my fee.” 

Another editor of the same date seems to be more satisfactory 


XXXll 


SKETCH BOOKS 


as far as money was coiiceriKMl ; but there arc otlier trials to 
which authors are subject. 

“ I am glad that the ‘ Revolution ’ is approved of, and thank 
you for the remittance : my bankers are Messrs. Lubbock. 

“ There are some woeful mistakes in the ‘ Revolution,’ ” he 
complains, “ sentences put in the wrong order, and made non- 
sense of. Having confided to you a few chapters of my forth- 
coming work on the French Revolution, you are bound in justice 
to print my words fairly, and I protest in the most solemn manner 
against several liberties which have been taken with my text.” 

Among other instances, he says, “ I never called 11. M. Louis- 
Philippe a ‘ Prince among sovereigns,’ which is absurd, but in 
reference to his Majesty’s great age named him a Priam among 
sovereigns, a classical allusion to his late Majesty, the eminent 
King of Troy.” 

“ I wish I could get an enterprising publisher to reproduce my 
stories. The last set containing ‘ Yellowplush ’ are out of print, 
I am told. And as I have got a public now, I should be glad to 
bring out a good stout book full of tales, reprints from Fraser — 
literary articles with illustrations by myself, outline etchings for 
the most part, which might be touched up by some professional 
engravers here. . . 

He also reverts to a favourite scheme of his, which was after- 
wards carried out, with some modifications, by the Saturday Re- 
view. It was that of a weekly paper, containing “ good work in 
series, good reviews, not notices only, good tlieatrical articles — 
a paper which should have a decided air of white kid gloves,” lie 
says. “I have begged and implored my friends. Chapman & 
Hall, on the subject, and to have the papers signed, and by good 
men — Buller, Carlyle, Forster ; and I could take the fine arts, the 
light literature and the theatres under my charge.” 

He rarely cared to write politics, although he never ceased to 
take an interest in them. 

“ We are all agog about the adhesion of Lord John and Lord 
.Morpeth to the Corn Laws,” he writes to his mother in March 
1844. “Peel is to go out, they say, and Whigs resume sway. 
What a lick-spittle of a country it is, where a couple of lords 
who have held aloof from the corn-law battle, calmly step in at 
the end of it, head the party, and take all the prize-monev! 


INTRODUCTION 


XXXlll 


What a fine fellow Cobden is ! His speech in to-day’s paper is 
a model of oratory, I think ; so manly, clear, and upright.” 

The history of the “ Next French Revolution,” “Jerome Patu- 
rot,” “ Bluebeard’s Ghost,” all belong to these same days : he was 
writing for newspapers, he was maturing future plans, looking 
for work wherever he saw a chance. He was also working 
steadily at “ Barry Lyndon,” and reading books of every de- 
scription, chiefly for his work. Macfarlane’s “Constantinople” 
among others interested him very much, and suggested a trag- 
edy, to be called “ The Berseker and the Three Kings.” 

A “ Life of Talleyrand” was actually advertised for publica- 
tion by Messrs. Chapman & Hall, but the book never appeared. 
My father was specially interested in Talleyrand, having known 
his private secretary. Monsieur Colmache, who had married a 
friend of my grandmother’s, at Paris. The plan for writing 
this Life was given up after the journey to the East, although a 
good deal of work had been given to it ; but he wrote from 
abroad that he had quite determined to abandon the under- 
taking. 

He writes from the Punch Office, July 1, 1844: “If your 
sunshine is bright and warm at Chaudfontaine to-dav as it is 
here in a dingy court in Whitefriars, you have all a pleasant 
welcome to your new abode. It is but a day’s run over to join 
you, but I have some awful work on hand, which presses se- 
verely this month. . . . Fraser and the Chronicle^ and the mighty 
Punch above all, would tie me here for many days to come. . . . 
If compliments can serve a man, they are to be had in plent)^, 
and a great deal of small flattery at tea and dinner parties. . . . 
You’ll see from the seal where this is written — after a breakfast 
with four members of Parliament, then a day’s work over the 
Emperor of Russia, about whose visit all the town’s agog.” 

When he first thought of going to the East, as we have seen, 
he counted up his piastres like Alnaschar, and said he should 
write a book for £300 to pay his expenses, and sell his drawings, 
and so forth. Something of the sort actually did happen, and he 
made his bargain with Messrs. Chapman & Hall before he left. 

Of all his books, “ Cornhill to Cairo” was always a chief fa- 
vourite with my grandmother ; nor do I wonder at it, it is full of 


XXXIV 


SKETCH BOOKS 


the most beautiful thoughts and conviction nobly expressed. 
Life and enjoyment were returning to him after the sad experi- 
ence of the last few years. Duty spoke to him, hope called to 
him ; a charity full of good humour, not blind, but droll and 
observant and merry, was his travelling companion. 

I was then a little girl of seven years old, and we were in Bel- 
gium, in an old country house, which our grandparents had hired 
for the summer. It was a pretty place, with a pretty name, 
Chaudfontaine, not very far from Liege. It was an Arcadian 
sort of country, with pleasant trees. There were streams and 
valleys, little chapels among the hills, to which we small pilgrims 
used to be taken, tugging up by stony, climbing ways. I can 
remember the long, straggling garden at the back of our villa. 



PRIEST AND PEASANT. 

and the snapdragons and lupins that skirted the garden beds. 
In front of the house, with its many green shutters, was a court- 
yard, enclosed by green gates, where we used to breakfast, and 
outside the gates a long terraced road by the dried-up river, 
where I used to walk with my father, holding his hand. He 



INTRODUCTION 


XXXV 


would come for a day or two ; sometimes he stayed at the villa, 
sometimes at a little inn in the village, a whitewashed place with 
trellises, where we would fetch him of a morning. He never re- 
mained very long with us ; he came and went suddenly. One 
morning he set out for the day, but the following letter arrived 
in the evening. I remember my grandmother’s exclamation of 
disappointment as she tore it open. The letter had the Ostend 
post-mark : — 

“ This is to say that I must go across the water, for I couldn’t 
find even a History of England at Brussels ; and for the sake of 
my story (‘ Barry Lyndon’) and Hume’s letter, it is much better 
that I should be on the spot. I only made up my mind at ten 
this morning, for it was hard to leave ; and when half the train 
went off to Chaudfontaine from Malines, as I came to this place, 
I felt as I used to do at Larkbeare with the dreadful Defiance 
coach coming over the hill. But I must go and do my duty, 
that’s the end of it, and when it’s over, I shall come back to 
you. ... I did no good at Brussels while I stayed, but read 
enormously for Talleyrand’s Life : it seems a month since I was 
with you, and the loneliness is anything but jolly. That is all 
I have to say, except to wish you and my dear little ones — I 
don’t know what to wish them better than to be with you. And 
though I am quite melancholy at parting with them, let me tell 
you that will not prevent me from eating my dinner, which is 
just going to be served. I cross to-morrow morning, and shall 
be in time to send off my Indian Letter in good style. The 
Pope’s Nuncio is to have my bedroom to-morrow ; think of my 
being warming-pan to his Holiness’s lieutenant.” 

My father was to come again, and we were making plans for 
his return, when again, to us, most eventful news arrived : — 


Wednesday evening^ August 21, 1844. 

“ My dearest Mammy, — I am going to write to you the great 
news, but my heart fails me as I send it, and I wish it weren’t 
true. I have just, only yesterday, had an offer to go passage- 
free by the Oriental Company to Lisbon, Cadiz, Gibraltar, Tan- 
gier, Athens, Constantinople, Smyrna, Jericho, Syria, and Je- 
rusalem, in ten weeks, and I thought the chance so great, that I 
have accepted. The book, of course, is ordered, and go I do 


XXXVl 


SKETCH BOOKS 


to-morrow. I am to write a book for C. & H. for £200 on 
the East, or that Cockney part which I shall see. Then to Tal- 
leyrand.” 

He was certainly never more fit for work, or more able to 
face life and its interests and varieties, than he was at this time. 
He kept a short diary of his travels, and the amount he was able 
to get through is wonderful to read of. 

His note-book is an odd illustration of the very slight con- 
nection which exists between external things and those which 
are in a man’s mind. Where are we all as we sit side by side, 
or greet each other in the market-place ? Puck himself would 
find it hard to keep up with a soul on its travels. 

All along the Piraeus and the coast of Troy my father carried 
his work, bringing “ Barry Lyndon,” as we have seen, to a con- 
clusion, and writing steadily for Punch. “ Cornhill to Cairo ” 
was also written at the same time. A great portion of this 
little book was contained in long letters to his mother, which 
used to come to Chaudfontaine through that summer. I can 
remember sitting in the sunny courtyard and listening to the 
letters, which my grandmother would read out to us as we all 
sat on a bench in the shade. 

The little note-book itself contains the slightest memoranda 
of travel. 

'■‘•Saturday., August 31. — Left Gibraltar at two by our new 
boat, the Tagus ; very handsome ; delightful run along the Span- 
ish coast; the rock of Gibraltar admirable in all its bearings; at 
night very damp and steaming hot ; the bugs played frightful 
pranks. 

“ Monday., September 2nd. — Fine weather, and decent enjoy- 
ment of life. Passed Algiers, rising very stately from the sea, 
and skirted by long dismal lines of African shore, with here and 
there a fire smoking in the mountains, and a lonely settlement 
every now and then. The table afforded a shelter from the bugs 
of the berth. Fell asleep over my work. 

“ Wednesday^ \th. — Dining very fruitless, basins in requisi- 
tion ; wind hard ahead. Que diable allait il faire dans cette 
galere ? Writing and thinking impossible ; dawdled over ‘ Hadji 
Baba.’ 


INTRODUCTION 


XXXVll 


“ Thursday^ 6th , — Arrived at Malta at twelve ; ^ on shore to 
the inn, drove to the Governor’s garden, and had great com- 
fort in a large bed, and a dinner unaccompanied by nausea.” 

The next day he reads “ ‘ Eothen,’ a clever book of Cambridge 
extraction.” 

On Monday, September 9th, on a beautiful morning, they 
enter the harbour of the Piraeus, pass the day leisurely looking 



DECK. 

through the town, the Temple of Jupiter, &c. ; they go to the 
Acropolis, and get back to the ship at night. 

^'‘Wednesday, Wth . — A charming, cool, calm day, the vessel 
skirting along all day by innumerable blue hills and islands ; 
wrote a very little. 

“ Thursday,, \2th . — Was awakened at five to see the sun rise 
in Smyrna Gulf ; saw the wonderful bazaars on shore, camels 
for the first time, the Arabian Nights alive. 

“ Friday,, \^th . — Off the coast of Troy.” And then the usual 
entry, “ Drew and wrote a little.” 

“ Saturday,, Wth . — Arrived in a fog, which prevents us from 

* This was the occasion when, as I was told by Lady Emerson Tennent, 
my fatlier was able to interpret for the others by quoting from his favourite 
operas. “Un biglietto, eccolo qua,” he said, &c. &c. 


xxxviii SKETCH BOOKS 

seeing the beauties of Constantinople; walked out after break- 
fast from Pera to the bazaar slave-market.” 

On Monday he again writes and draws for Punchy goes on 
board the old Tagus, and takes a delightful row down “ the 
most beautiful waters in the world.” 

“ Tuesday, \^th. — In the afternoon to the Seraglio Gardens; 

review, white eunuchs; driven 
away while making sketch of 
the gate, and drew the mosque 
of St. Sophia on a board at a 
Greek eating-house; tipsy Ar- 
menian singing about. 

“ On Wednesday wrote Punch 
the whole day, drew for it, and 
finished four letters of the 
F. C.^ Took a walk to the 
burial - ground at Pera, very 
picturesque; again at work at 
night. 

“ Friday, 20th. — About in a 
boat to the burying mosque up 
the river; drew, but no work 
done ; saw the Sultan go to 
the mosque of Tophana — eu- 
nuchs, women, negresses, peti- 
tions, bad gunning. Seedy look 
of the Sultan. . . .” 

SHAVING SCENE. Next day they leave Constan- 

tinople, “ looking more beau- 
tiful than ever. Coming off by the Iberia in the evening. 
All sorts of Jews, Turks, filth, and oddity on board.” 

“Tried on Sunday to write ‘Barry Lyndon,’ and on Monday 
completed about twelve pages, after a hard, uncomfortable day’s 
work, just in time to despatch by the Tagus as she left Smyrna 
at four o’clock. 

“ Tuesday, 2Mh. — At sea off Mitylene and Patmos. 

“ Thursday, 20th. — Patmos looked beautiful from the shore 



*Tlie “Fat Contributor.' 


INTRODUCTION 


XXXIX 


as we anchored, but is a ruin within, except tlie fortifications, 
which are in good order. . . . The Jewish quarter horrible. 

“ Friday^ 2lth . — In the early morning through the beautiful 
bay of Glaucus to Telemessus, to see tombs and a magnificent 
landscape. Remember the palm-trees ; theatre with its beauti- 
ful outlook on the bay, camels, oleanders. 

“ Saturday^ 2Sth . — A white squall in tbe morning, dire con- 
sternation among the Jews and infidels; off Cyprus all day, and 
considerable qualmishness among all on board.” 



SLEEPING TRAVELLER. 


Then come Beyroot and Caifa and Jaffa, where he has a pipe 
outside the walls. 

“ Thursday^ October ^rd . — Made the journey from Jaffa to 
Jerusalem, setting out at four in the morning; escort, Jereed 
plains, Armenian breakfast, black shepherds, blue women, wells, 
and vast yellow flats, rocky country, like waterfalls petrified, 
Abou Gosh — darkness into Jerusalem.” 

The account of this first coming into Jerusalem is very strik- 
ing as it is given in the book itself : — 


xl 


SKETCH BOOKS 


. We heard the evening gun fired from Jerusalem. The 
twilight is brief in this country, and in a few minutes the land- 
scape was grey round about us, and the sky lighted up by a 
hundred thousand stars, which made the night beautiful. 

Under this superb canopy we rode for a couple of hours to 
our journey’s end. The mountains round about us dark, lonely, 
and sad ; the landscape as we saw it at night the most solemn 
and forlorn I have ever seen. The feelings of almost terror 
with which, riding through the night, we approached this awful 
place, the centre of the world’s past and future history, have no 
need to be noted down here. The recollection of those sensa- 
tions must remain with a man as long as his memory lasts ; and 
he should think of them as often, perhaps, as he should talk of 
them little.” 

Next day he is at home all day working. 

“ Saturday . — Work all the morning ; walked to Mount Olivet, 
sketched along the way. 

“ Sunday . — To church, the service being well celebrated and 
affective ; drew in the afternoon. 

Monday^ ^th . — Rode to Bethlehem, the most picturesque 
ride and place I have seen here ; breakfast at Greek convent, 
row about horses.” 

On Tuesday, 6th, he works all the morning, and visits Siloam; 
and on Friday, in a beautiful sunrise, they quit Jerusalem and 
make the journey to Ramleh, where they sleep at the Greek 
convent. 

At Alexandria he notes the bazaars, the citadel, the mosque 
of Hasden, the tombs, howling women ; “ no work done all 
these days, but sketching a little, and wonderment everywhere.” 

Then comes an entry which seems like a return to more com- 
monplace experiences. 

Friday, 2bth . — Found a waistcoat comfortable.” 

The following day they were at sea, and on the 27th came 
into quarantine at Malta. 

“The first day of quarantine passed pleasantly enough,” he 
writes, “ with plenty of space and air, and quite enough free- 
dom. The Iberians visited us, and brought us the sad news of 
poor old B.’s illness ; it terminated in his death. I had him 


INTRODUCTION 


xli 


round the waist only yes- 
terday, walking with him 
up and down the ship. 
Sent off letters home. 
Wrote a little journal at 
night.” 

“ Tuesday^ October 29^A. 
— Attended B.’s burial 
to-day in the quarantine 
ground, behind the plague 
hospital.” 

“ November Sth. — In 
these days did scarcely 
anything but work and 
design the characters for 
‘ Mrs. Perkins’s Ball.’ ” 

“ On November 12th 
came out of quarantine 
very weary of imprison- 
ment, which I had hoped 
to put to much greater 
profit. Dr. Sankey took 
me to club, library, &c.. 



SIESTA IN TREE. 



SIESTA. 


xlii 


SKETCH BOOKS 


and after dawdling a fortnight in prison, it was pleasant to do 
the same at liberty.” 

He came home by Naples and Rome, and I can remember his 
return. We were in Paris; he arrived in the evening, and he 
kissed me ; but my little sister cried because he had grown a 
moustache during his absence, and she thought he was another 
papa. Then he folded a newspaper and kissed her through it, 
and next morning when he came down he had shaved off his 
moustache, and she flung her arms round his neck, and knew 
him quite well. 

He did not remain long with us, and was soon back at his 
work again in London. 

The following letter must have been one of the first which 
came to my grandmother after his departure. It is dated Sat- 
urday 1845 — 

“ I have no more to say than usual. I am busy with scores of 
little jobs comme a V ordinaire. I have only just found time to 
finish my book, and am here at an inn at Chelsea for that pur- 
pose, looking out at the river, and working away tant hien que 
mal. But I am guarded with Jerusalem, not wishing to offend 
the public by a needless exhibition of heterodoxy, nor daring to 
be a hypocrite. I have been reading lots of books — Old Testa- 
ment* — Church histories, travels, and advance but slowly in the 
labour. I find there was a sect in the early Church who de- 
nounced the Old Testament ; and get into such a rage myself 
when reading all that murder and crime which the name of the 
Almighty is blasphemously made to sanction, that I don’t dare 
to trust myself to write, and put off my work from day to day. 
When I get the book out of hand, please God I shall see the dear, 
dear little and big faces again. I have fond visions^of double 
cottages in the Hammersmith or Hampstead districts, where we 
could be all together, and yet each independent. What a bless- 
ing it would be to have a home once more ! 

“ My position — you see I’ve nothing to say but about myself — 

* I remember Mrs. Carlyle telling me that when my father was staying at 
Don Saltero’s, at the end of Cheyne Row, they were first made aware of his 
being there by a note which the pot-boy brought over, asking for the loan of 
a Bible. 


INTRODUCTION 


xliii 


appears to be very good, and my reputation in my profession of 
the best sort after the great guns. The admirers of Mr. Titmarsh 
are a small clique, but a good and increasing one, if I may gather 
from the daily offers that are made me, and the increased suras 
bid for my writings. Enough of this ; you know, or at least I 
hope, I don’t puff myself with vanity, but try and consider my 
chances fairly like those of an indifferent party.” 

A letter follows from 54 Grand Parade, Brighton : — 

“ I wish I had a home, and all of you here ; it is the merriest 
place. There are no trees, to be sure ; but the sun is not too hot, 
and the sea looks almost as blue as the Mediterranean. Yester- 
day I saw Mrs. FitzGerald in great state — four-in-hand, an army 
of flunkeys and ladies’ -maids, and piles of mysterious imperials. 
There’s a prospect of good dinners !” 

Here is one last allusion to the “ Journey from Cornhill to 
Cairo ” : — 

To his Mother. 

“ February 16, 1846. 

“ I have just got ray foot in the stirrup to be off to Brighton 
for two or three days’ meditation, and have not a word to say 
even to fill this half-sheet. Haven’t I gorged you with flummery 
from the newspapers ? They are all mighty polite, except one 
fellow, a friend of mine, who calls me a heartless and self-suffi- 
cient Cockney. The book is not only praised, but also sells very 
well. They have already got rid of a thousand more than the 
Irish book sold altogether. 

“ I have been house-hunting like a maniac. What do you say 
to a beautiful house, field, farm of seven acres, at three miles 
from London, cocks, hens, paddocks, gardens, &c. ? This can 
be had for £200 a year — a perfect country domain.” 


A. I. R. 




THE 


PARIS SKETCH BOOK 








DEDICATORY LETTER 


TO 

M. ARETZ, TAILOR, etc. 

27 KUE RICHELIEU, PARIS 


S IR, — It becomes every man in his station to acknowledge and 
praise virtue wheresoever he may find it, and to point it out 
for the admiration and example of his fellow-men. 

Some months since, when you presented to the writer of these 
pages a small account for coats and pantaloons manufactured by you, 
and when you were met by a statement from your debtor, that an 
immediate settlement of your bill would be extremely inconvenient 
to him ; your reply was, “ Mon Dieu, Sir, let not that annoy you ; 
if you want money, as a gentleman often does in a strange country, 
I have a thousand-franc note at my house which is quite at your 
service.” 

History or experience. Sir, makes us acquainted with so few 
actions that can be compared to yours, — an offer like this from a 
stranger and a tailor seems to me so astonishing, — that you must 
pardon me for thus making your virtue public, and acquainting the 
English nation with your merit and your name. Let me add, Sir, 
that you live on the first-floor; that your clothes and fit are 
excellent, and your charges moderate and just; and, as a humble 
tribute of my admiration, permit me to lay these volumes at 
your feet. — Your obliged, faithful servant, 


M. A. TITMARSH. 




-'’Tvr .,*i 


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iWi V. 



^ADVERTISEMENT 


TO 

THE FIRST EDITION 


A bout half of the sketches in these volumes have already 
appeared in print, in various periodical works. A part of 
the text of one tale, and the plots of two others, have been 
borrowed from French originals ; the other stories, which are, in 
the main, true, have been written upon facts and characters that 
came within the Author’s observation during a residence in Paris. 


As the remaining papers relate to public events which occurred 
during the same period, or to Parisian Art and Literature, he has 
ventured to give his publication the title which it bears. 


London : July 1 , 1840 . 


E 



EXPLANATION OF THE ALLEGORY. 

Number I’s an Ancient Carlist, Number 3 a Paris artist, 
Gloomily there stands between them, Number 2 a Bonapartist ; 
In the middle is King Louis-Phillip standing at his ease, 
Guarded by a loyal Grocer, and a Serjeant of Police ; 

4's the people in a passion, 0 a Priest of pious mien, 

5 a Gentleman of Fashion, copied from a Magazine. 



A' 









. '. ■* I . ' 

„•>: iS .-r^ 


: » ■{ ’:vv>u: *a t T -^^ta 

■J * --3 



THE 


PARIS SKETCH BOOK 

AN INVASION OF FRANCE 

“ C:x3sar venit in Gnlliam sumnia diligentiti,. ” 


A BOUT twelve o’clock, just as the bell of the packet is tolling a 
farewell to London Bridge, and warning off the blackguard 
^ ^ boys with the newspapers, who have been shoving Times^ 

Herald^ Fenny Paid-Fry, Fenny Satirist, Flare-up, and other 
abominations into your face — ^just as the l)ell has tolled, and tlie 
Jews, strangers, people-taking-leave-of-their-families, and blackguard 
boys aforesaid are making a rush for the narrow plank which 
conducts from the paddle-box of the Emerald steamboat unto the 
quay — you perceive, staggering down Thames Street, those two 
hackney-coaches, for the arrival of which you have been praying, 

trembling, hoping, despairing, swearing — sw , I beg your pardon, 

I believe the word is not used in polite company — and transpiring, 
for the last half-hour. Yes, at last, the two coaches draw near, and 
from thence an awful number of trunks, children, carpet-bags, 
nursery-maids, hat-boxes, band-boxes, bonnet-boxes, desks, cloaks, 
and an affectionate wife, are discharged on tlie quay. 

“ Elizabeth, take care of Miss Jane,” screams that worthy 
woman, who has been for a fortnight employed in getting this 
tremendous body of troops and baggage into marching order. 
“Hicks! Hicks! for Heaven’s sake mind the babies!” — “George 
— Edward, sir, if you go near that porter with the trunk, lie will 
tumble down and kill you, you naughty boy ! — My love, do take 
the cloaks and umbrellas, and give a hand to Fanny and Lucy ; 
and I wish you would speak to the liackney-coachmen, dear — they 
want fifteen shillings ; and count tlie packages, love — twenty-seven 
packages, — and bring little Flo; where’s little Flol — Flo ! Flo !” — 


8 


THE PARIS SKETCH BOOK 


(Flo comes sneaking in : she has been speaking a few parting words 
to a one-eyed terrier, that sneaks off similarly, landward.) 

As when the hawk menaces the hen-roost, in like manner, when 
such a danger as a voyage menaces a mother, she becomes suddenly 
endowed with a ferocious presence of mind, and bristling up and 
screaming in the front of her brood, and in the face of circumstances, 
succeeds, by her courage, in putting her enemy to flight; in like 
manner you will always, I think, find your wife (if that lady be 
good for twopence) shrill, eager, and ill-humoured, before and during 
a great family move of this nature. Well, the swindling hackney- 
coachmen are paid, the mother leading on her regiment of little 
ones, and supported by her auxiliary nursemaids, are safe in the 
cabin ; you have counted twenty-six of the twenty-seven parcels, 
and have them on board ; and that horrid man on the paddle-box, 
who, for twenty minutes past, has been roaring out. Now, Sir! — 
says, Now, sir, no more. 

I never yet knew how a steamer began to move, being always 
too busy among the trunks and children, for the first half-hour, to 
mark any of the movements of the vessel. When these private 
arrangements are made, you find yourself opposite Greenwich (fare- 
well, sweet, sweet whitebait !), and quiet begins to enter your soul. 
Your wife smiles for the first time these ten days; you pass by 
plantations of ship-masts, and forests of steam-chimneys ; the sailors 
are singing on board the ships, the bargees salute you with oaths, 
grins, and phrases facetious and familiar ; the man on the paddle- 
box roars, “ Ease her, stop her ! ” which mysterious words a shrill 
voice from below repeats, and pipes out, “ Ease her, stop her ! ” in 
echo; the deck is crowded with groups of figures, and the sun 
shines over all. 

The sun shines over all, and the steward comes up to say, 
“Lunch, ladies and gentlemen! Will any lady or gentleman 
please to take anythink 1 ” About a dozen do : boiled beef and 
pickles, and great red raw Cheshire cheese, tempt the epicure : 
little dumpy bottles of stout are produced, and fizz and bang about 
with a spirit one would never have looked for in individuals of 
their size and stature. 

The decks have a strange look; the people on them, that is. 
Wives, elderly stout husbands, nursemaids, and children predomi- 
nate, of course, in English steamboats. Such may be considered 
as the distinctive marks of the English gentleman at three or 
four-and-forty ; two or three of such groups have pitched their 
camps on the deck. Then there are a number of young men, of 
whom three or four have allowed their moustaches to begin to grow 
since last Friday ; for they are going “ on the Continent,” and 


AN INVASION OF FRANCE 9 

they look, therefore, as if their upper lips were smeared with 
snuff. 

A danseuse from the opera is on her way to Paris. Followed 
by her bonne and her little dog, she paces the deck, stepping out, 
in the real dancer fashion, and ogling all around. How happy the 
two young Englishmen are, who can speak French, and make up 
to her : and how all criticise her points and paces ! Yonder is a 
group of young ladies, who are going to Paris to learn how to be 
governesses : those two splendidly dressed ladies are milliners from 
the Rue Richelieu, who have just brought over, and disposed of, 
their cargo of Summer fashions. Here sits the Rev. Mr. Snodgrass 
with his pupils, whom he is conducting to his establishment, near 
Boulogne, where, in addition to a classical and mathematical education 
(washing included), the young gentlemen have the benefit of learning 
French among the French themselves. Accordingly, the young gentle- 
men are locked up in a great rickety house, two miles from Boulogne, 
and never see a soul, except the French usher and the cook. 

Some few French people are there already, preparing to be 
ill — (I never shall forget a dreadful sight I once had in the little 
dark, dirty, six-foot cabin of a Dover steamer. Four gaunt Frencli- 
men, but for their pantaloons in the costume of Adam in Paradise, 
solemnly anointing themselves with some charm against sea-sick- 
ness !) — -a few Frenchmen are there, but these, for the most part, 
and with a proper philosophy, go to the fore-cabin of the ship, and 
you see them on the fore-deck (is that the name for that part of 
the vessel which is in the region of the bowsprit *?) lowering in huge 
cloaks and caps ; snuffy, wretched, pale, and wet ; and not jabbering 
now, as their wont is on shore. I never could fancy the Mounseers 
formidable at sea. 

There are, of course, many Jews on board. Who ever travelled 
by steamboat, coach, diligence, eilwagen, vetturino, mule-back, or 
sledge, without meeting some of the wandering race 1 

By the time these remarks have been made the steward is on 
the deck again, and dinner is ready : and about two hours after 
dinner comes tea ; and then there is brandy-and-water, which he 
eagerly presses as a preventive against what may happen ; and 
about this time you pass the Foreland, the wind blowing pretty 
fresh ; and the groups on deck disappear, and your wife, giving 
you an alarmed look, descends, with her little ones, to the ladies’ 
cabin, and you see the steward and his boys issuing from their 
den under the paddle-box, with each a heap of round tin vases, 
like those which are called, I believe, in America, expectoratoons, 
only these are larger. 


10 


THE PARIS SKETCH BOOK 


The wind blows, the water looks greener and more beautiful 
than ever — ridge by ridge of long white rock passes away. “ That’s 
Ramsgit,” says the man at the helm ; and, presently, “ That there’s 
Deal— it’s dreadful fallen off since the war ; ” and “ Tliat’s Dover, 
round that there pint, only you can’t see it.” And, in the mean- 
time, the sun has plumped his hot face into the water, and the 
moon has sliown hers as soon as ever his back is turned, and Mrs, 

(the wife in general) has brought up her children and self 

from tlie horrid cabin, in wliich she says it is impossible to breathe ; 
and the poor little wretches are, by the officious stewardess and 
smart steward (expectoratoonifer), accommodated with a heap of 
blankets, pillows, and mattresses, in the midst of which they crawl, 
as best they may, and from the heaving heap of which are, during 
the rest of the voyage, heard occasional faint cries, and sounds of 
puking woe ! 

Dear, dear Maria ! Is this the woman who, anon, braved the 
jeers and brutal wrath of swindling hackney-coachmen ; who re- 
pelled the insolence of haggling porters, with a scorn that brought 
down their demands at least eighteen pence 1 Is this the woman 
at whose voice servants tremble ; at the sound of whose steps the 
nursery, ay, and mayhap the parlour, is in order? Look at her 
now, prostrate, prostrate — no strength has she to speak, scarce 
power to push to her youngest one — her suffering struggling Rosa, 
— to push to her the — the instrumentoon ! 

In the midst of all these throes and agonies, at which all the 
passengers, who have their own woes (you yourself — for how can 
you help them? — yow are on your back on a bench, and if you 
move all is up with you), are looking on indiiferent — one man 
there is who has been watching you with the utmost care, and 
bestowing on your helpless family the tenderness that a father 
denies them. He is a foreigner, and you have been conversing 
with him, in the course of the morning, in French — which, he says, 
you speak remarkably well, like a native, in fact, and then in 
English (which, after all, you find is more convenient). What 
can express your gratitude to this gentleman for all his goodness 
towards your family and yourself? — you talk to him, he has served 
under the Emperor, and is, for all that, sensible, modest, and Avell 
informed. He speaks, indeed, of his countrymen, almost with 
contempt, and readily admits the superiority of a Briton, on the 
seas and elsewhere. One loves to meet with such genuine liberality 
in a foreigner, and respects the man who can sacrifice vanity to 
truth. This distinguished foreigner has travelled much ; he asks 
whither you are going? — where you stop? if you have a great 
quantity of luggage on board ? — and laughs when he hears of the 


AN INVASION OF FRANCE 


11 


twenty-seven packages, and hopes you have some friend at the 
custom-house, who can spare you the monstrous trouble of un- 
packing that which has taken you weeks to put up. Nine, ten, 
eleven, the distinguislied foreigner is ever at your side ; you find 
him now, perhaps (with characteristic ingratitude), something of 
a bore, but, at least, he has been most tender to tlie children and 
their mamma. At last a Boulogne light comes in sight (you see 
it over the bows of the vessel, when, having bobbed violently 
upwards, it sinks swiftly down) ; Boulogne harbour is in sight, 
and the foreigner says : — 

The distinguished foreigner says, says he — “ Sare, eef you af 
no ’otel, I sail recommend you, milor, to ze ’Otel Betfort, in ze 
Quay, sare, close to the bathing-machines and custom-ha-oose. 
Good bets and fine garten, sare ; table-d’hdte, sare, a cinq heures ; 
breakfast, sare, in French or Englisli style I am the commis- 
sionaire, sare, and vill see to your loggish.” 

. . . Curse tlie fellow, for an impudent, swindling, sneaking 
French humbug ! — Your tone instantly changes, and you tell him 
to go about his business; but at twelve o’clock at night, when 
the voyage is over, and the custom-liouse business done, knowing 
not whither to go, with a wife and fourteen exhausted children, 
scarce able to stand, and longing for bed, you find yourself, some- 
how, in the Hotel Bedford (and you can’t be better), and smiling 
chambermaids carry off your children to snug beds ; wliile smart 
waiters produce for your honour — a cold fowl, say, and a salad, 
and a bottle of Bordeaux and seltzer water. 

The morning comes — I don’t know a pleasanter feeling than 
that of waking with the sun shining on objects quite new, and 
(although you have made the voyage a dozen times) quite strange. 
Mrs. X. and you occupy a very light bed which has a tall canopy 
of red ; the windows are smartly draped with cheap gaudy 

calicoes and muslins : there are little mean strips of carpet about 
the tiled floor of the room, and yet all seems as gay and as com- 
fortable as may be — the sun shines brighter than you have seen 
it for a year, the sky is a thousand times bluer, and what a cheery 
clatter of shrill quick French voices comes up from the courtyard 
under the windows ! Bells are jangling ; a family, mayhap, is 
going to Paris en poste^ and wondrous is the jabber of the courier, 
the postillion, the inn-waiters, and the lookers-on. The landlord 
calls out for “ Quatre biftecks aux pommes pour le trente-trois,” 

(0 my countrymen, I love your tastes and your ways !) — the 

chambermaid is laughing, and says, “ Finissez done, Monsieur 
Pierre ! ” (what can they be about '!) — a fat Englishman has opened 


12 


THE PARIS SKETCH BOOK 


his window violently, and says, “ Dee dong, garsong, vooly voo 
me donny lo slio, on vooly voo pah?” He has been ringing for 
half-an-hour — the last energetic appeal succeeds, and shortly he 
is enabled to descend to the coffee-room, where, with three hot 
rolls, giilled ham, cold fowl, and four boiled eggs, he makes what 
he calls his first French breakfast. 

It is a strange, mongrel, merry place, this town of Boulogne ; 
the little French fishermen’s children are beautiful, and the little 
French soldiers, four feet high, red-breeched, with huge pompons 
on their caps, and brown faces, and clear sharp eyes, look, for all 
their littleness, far more military and more intelligent than the 
heavy louts one has seen swaggering about the garrison towns in 
England. Yonder go a crowd of barelegged fishermen ; there is 
the town idiot, mocking a woman who is screaming “ Fleuve du 
Tage,” at an inn-window, to a harp, and there are the little gamins 
mocking him. Lo ! these seven young ladies, with red hair and 
green veils, they are from neighbouring Albion, and going to bathe. 
Here come three Englishmen, habitues evidently of the place, — 
dandy specimens of our countrymen : one wears a marine dress, 
another has a shooting dress, a third has a blouse and a pair of 
guiltless spurs — all have as much hail* on the face as nature or art 
can supply, and all wear their hats very much on one side. Believe 
me, there is on the face of this world no scamp like an English one, 
no blackguard like one of these half-gentlemen, so mean, so low, so 
vulgar, — so ludicrously ignorant and conceited, so desperately heart- 
less and depraved. 

But why, my dear sir, get into a passion ? — Take things coolly. 
As the poet has observed, “ Those only is gentlemen who behave 
as sich ; ” with such, then, consort, be they cobblers or dukes. 
Don’t give us, cries the patriotic reader, any abuse of our fellow- 
countrymen (anybody else can do that), but ratlier continue in that 
good-humoured, facetious, descriptive style, with which your letter 
has commenced. — Your remark, sir, is perfectly just, and does 
honour to your head and excellent heart. 

There is little need to give a description of the good town of 
Boulogne ; which, haute and basse, with the new lighthouse and 
the new harbour, and the gas-lamps, and the manufactories, and 
the convents, and the number of English and French residents, 
and the pillar erected in honour of the grand Armee di Angleterre, 
so called because it didnH go to England, have all been excellently 
described by the facetious Coglan, the learned Dr. Millingen, and 
by innumerable guide-books besides. A fine thing it is to hear 
the stout old Frenchmen of Napoleon’s time argue how that 
audacious Corsican would have marched to London, after swallow- 


AN INVASION OF FRANCE 


13 


ing Nelson and all his gunboats, but for cette malheureuse guerre 
dJ E^mgne and cette glorieuse campagne dJ Autrichc^ which the 
gold of Pitt caused to be raised at the Emperor’s tail, in order to 
call him off from the helpless country in his front. Some French- 
men go farther still, and vow that in Spain they were never beaten 
at all ; indeed, if you read in the “ Biographie des Hommes du 
Jour,” article “ Soult,” you will fancy that, with the exception of 
the disaster at Vittoria, the campaigns in Spain and Portugal were 
a series of triumphs. Only, by looking at a map, it is observable 
that Vimeiro is a mortal long way from Toulouse, where, at the 
end of certain years of victories, we somehow find the honest 
Marshal. And what then ? — he went to Toulouse for the purpose 
of beating the English there, to be sure ; — a known fact, on which 
comment would be superfluous. However, we shall never get to 
Paris at this rate ; let us break off further palaver, and away 
at once. . . . 

(During this pause, the ingenious reader is kindly requested to 
pay his bill at the Hotel at Boulogne, to mount the Diligence of 
Laftitte, Caillard, and Company, and to travel for twenty-five hours, 
amidst much jingling of harness-bells and screaming of postillions.) 

The French milliner, who occupies one of the corners, begins to 
remove the greasy pieces of paper which have enveloped her locks 
during the journey. She withdraws the “ Madras ” of dubious hue 
which has bound her head for the last five-and-twenty hours, and 
replaces it by the black velvet bonnet, which, bobbing ag^nst your 
nose, lias hung from the Diligence roof since your departure from 
Boulogne. The old lady in the opposite corner, who has been 
sucking bonbons, and smells dreadfully of anisette, arranges her 
little parcels in that immense basket of abominations which all old 
women carry in their laps. She rubs her mouth and eyes with her 
dusty cambric handkerchief, she ties up her nightcap into a little 
bundle, and replaces it by a more becoming headpiece, covered with 
withered artificial flowers and crumpled tags of ribbon ; she looks 
wistfully at the company for an instant, and then places her hand- 
kerchief before her mouth : — her eyes roll strangely about for an 
instant, and you hear a faint clattering noise : the old lady has 
been getting ready her teeth, which had lain in her basket among 
the bonbons, pins, oranges, pomatum, bits of cake, lozenges, prayer- 
books, peppermint-water, copper-money, and false hair — stowed 
away there during the voyage. The Jewish gentleman, who has 
been so attentive to the milliner during the journey, and is a 
traveller and bagman by profession, gathers together his various 
goods. The sallow-faced English lad, who has been drunk ever 


14 


THE PARIS SKETCH BOOK 


since we left Boulogne yesterday, and is coming to Paris to pursue 
the study of medicine, Swears that he rejoices to leave the cursed 
Diligence, is sick of the infernal journey, and d — d glad that the 
d — d voyage is so nearly over. “ Enfin ! ” says your neighbour, 
yawning, and inserting an elbow into the mouth of his riglit and 
left-hand companion, “ nous voilk.” 

Nous VoiLA ! — We are at Paris ! This must account for the 
removal of the milliner’s curl-papers, and the fixing of the old lady’s 
teeth. — Since the last relais, the Diligence has been travelling with 
extraordinary speed. The postillion cracks his terrible whip, and 
screams shrilly. The conductor blows incessantly on his horn, the 
bells of the harness, the bumping and ringing of the wheels and 
chains, and the clatter of the great hoofs of the heavy snorting 
Norman stallions, have wondrously increased within this the last 
ten minutes ; and the Diligence, which has been proceeding hitherto 
at the rate of a league in an hour, now dashes gallantly forward, as 
if it would traverse at least six miles in the same space of time. 
Thus it is, when Sir Robert maketh a speech at St. Stephen’s — he 
useth his strength at the beginning, only, and the end. He 
gallopeth at the commencement ; in the middle he lingers ; at the 
close, again, he rouses the House, which has fallen asleep ; he 
cracketh the whip of his satire; he shouts the shout of his 
patriotism ; and, urging his eloquence to its roughest canter, 
awakens the sleepers, and inspires the weary, until men say. What 
a wondrous orator ! What a capital coach ! We will ride hence- 
forth in it, and in no other ! 

But, Tbehold us at Paris ! The Diligence has reached a rude- 
looking gate, or grille^ flanked by two lodges ; the French Kings 
of old made their entry by this gate ; some of the hottest battles of 
the late revolution were fought before it. At present, it is blocked 
by carts and peasants, and a busy crowd of men, in gi’een, examin- 
ing the packages before they enter, probing tlie straw witli long 
needles. It is the Barrier of St. Denis, and the green men are the 
customs-men of the city of Paris. If you are a countryman, who 
would introduce a cow into the metropolis, the city demands 
twenty-four francs for such a privilege : if you have a hundred- 
weight of tallow-candles, you must, previously, disburse three francs : 
if a drove of hogs, nine francs per wliole hog : but upon these 
subjects Mr. Bulwer, Mrs. Trollope, and other writers, have already 
enlightened the public. In the present instance, after a momentary 
pause, one of the men in green mounts by the side of the conductor, 
and the ponderous vehicle pursues its journey. 

The street which we enter, that of the Faubourg St. Denis, 
presents a strange contrast to the dark uniformity of a London 


AN INVASION OF FRANCE 


15 


street, where everything, in the dingy and smoky atmosphere, 
looks as though it were painted in India-ink — black houses, black 
passengers, and black sky. Here, on the contrary, is a thousand 
times more life and colour. Before you, shining in the sun, is a 
long glistening line of gutter — not a very pleasing object in a city, 
but in a picture invaluable. On each side are houses of all dimen- 
sions and hues ; some but of one storey ; some as high as tlie Tower 
of Babel. From these the haberdashers (and this is their favourite 
street) flaunt long strips of gaudy calicoes, which give a strange air 
of rude gaiety to the street. Milk- women, with a little crowd of 
gossips round each, are, at this early hour of morning, selling the 
chief material of the Parisian cnfe-au-lait. Gay wine-shops, painted 
red, and smartly decorated with vines and gilded railings, are filled 
with workmen taking their morning’s draught. That gloomy- 
looking prison on your right is a prison for women ; once it was 
a convent for Lazarists : a thousand unfortunate individuals of the 
softer sex now occupy that mansion : they bake, as we find in the 
guide-books, the bread of all the other prisons ; they mend and wash 
the shirts and stockings of all the other prisoners ; they make hooks- 
and-eyes and phosphorus-boxes, and they attend chapel every Sunday ; 
— if occupation can help them, sure they have enough of it. Was 
it not a great stroke of the legislature to superintend the morals 
and linen at once, and thus keep these poor creatures continually 
mending ? — But we have passed the prison long ago, and are at the 
Porte St. Denis itself. 

There is only time to take a hasty glance as we pass : it com- 
memorates some of the wonderful feats of arms of Ludovicus Magnus, 
and abounds in ponderous allegories — nymphs, and river-gods, and 
pyramids crowned with fleurs-de-lis ; Louis passing over the Rhine 
in triumph, and the Dutch Lion giving up the ghost, in the year 
of our Lord 1672. The Dutch Lion revived, and overcame the 
man some years afterwards; but of this fact, singidarly enough, 
the inscriptions make no mention. Passing, then, round the gate, 
and not under it (after the general custom, in respect of triumphal 
arches), you cross the Boulevard, which gives a glimpse of trees and 
sunshine, and gleaming white buildings; then, dashing down the 
Rue de Bourbon Villeneuve, a dirty street, which seems inter- 
minable, and the Rue St. Eustache, the conductor gives a last blast 
on his horn, and the great vehicle clatters into the courtyard, where 
its journey is destined to conclude. 

If there was a noise before of screaming postillions and cracked 
horns, it was nothing to the Babel-like clatter which greets us now. 
We are in a great court, which Hajji Baba would call the father of 
Diligences. Half-a-dozen other coaches arrive at the same minute — 


16 


THE PARIS SKETCH BOOK 


no liglit affairs, like your English vehicles, but ponderous machines, 
containing fifteen passengers inside, more in the cabriolet, and vast 
towers of luggage on the roof : others are loading : the yard is 
filled with passengers coming or departing ; — bustling porters and 
screaming commissionaires. These latter seize you as you descend 
from your place, — twenty cards are thrust into your hand, and as 
many voices, jabbering with inconceivable swiftness, shriek into your 
ear, “ Dis way, sare ; are you for ze ‘ ’Otel of Rhin ’ ? ‘ Hotel de 

I’Amirautd ’ ! — Hotel Bristol,’ sare ? — Monsieur, ‘ I’Hotel de Lille ’ ? 
Sacr-rrrd nom de Dieu, laissez passer ce petit Monsieur ! Ow mosh 
loggish ’ave you, sare ? ” 

And now, if you are a stranger in Paris, listen to the words of 
Titmarsh. — If you cannot speak a syllable of French, and love 
English comfort, clean rooms, breakfasts, and waiters ; if you would 
have plentiful dinners, and are not particular (as how should you 
be 1) concerning wine ; if, in this foreign country, you will have your 
English companions, your porter, your friend, and your brandy-and- 
water — do not listen to any of these commissioner fellows, but with 
your best English accent shout out boldly, “Meurice!” and straight- 
way a man will step forward to conduct you to the Rue de Rivoli. 

Here you find apartments at any price : a very neat room, for 
instance, for three francs daily ; an English breakfast of eternal 
boiled eggs, or grilled ham ; a nondescript dinner, profuse but cold ; 
and a society which will rejoice your heart. Here are young 
gentlemen from the Universities ; young merchants on a lark ; 
large families of nine daughters, with fat father and mother : officers 
of dragoons, and lawyers’ clerks. The last time we dined at 
“ Meurice’s ” Ave hobbed and nobbed Avith no less a person than Mr. 
Moses, the celebrated bailiff of Chancery Lane; Lord Brougham 
Avas on his right, and a clergyman’s lady, Avith a train of white- 
haired girls, sat on his left, wonderfully taken with the diamond 
rings of the fascinating stranger ! 

It is, as you Avill perceive, an admirable way to see Paris, 
especially if you spend your days reading the English papers at 
Galignani’s, as many of our foreign tourists do. 

But all this is promiscuous, and not to the purpose. If, — to 
continue on the subject of hotel choosing, — if you love quiet, heavy 
bills, and the best tahle-d^hote in the city, go, 0 stranger ! to the 
“ Hotel des Princes ” ; it is close to the Boulevard, and convenient 
for Frascati’s. The “ Hotel Mirabeau ” possesses scarcely less attrac- 
tion ; but of this you will find, in Mr. Bulmer’s “ Autobiography of 
Pelham,” a faithful and complete account. “ Lawson’s Hotel ” has 
likeAvise its merits, as also the “ Hotel de Lille,” which may be 
described as a “ second chop ” Meurice. 


AN INVASION OF FRANCE 


17 


If you are a poor student eome to study the humanities, or the 
pleasant art of amputation, cross the water forthwith, and proceed 
to the “ Hotel Corneille,” near the Od^on, or others of its species ; 
there are many where you can live royally (until you economise by 
going into lodgings) on four francs a day ; and where if by any 
strange chance you are desirous for a while to get rid of your 
countrymen, you will find that they scarcely ever penetrate. 

But above all, 0 my countrymen ! shun boarding-houses, especi- 
ally if you have ladies in your train ; or ponder well, and examine 
the characters of the keepers thereof, before you lead your innocent 
daughters, and their mamma, into places so dangerous. In the 
first place, you have bad dinners ; and, secondly, bad company. If 
you play cards, you are very likely playing with a swindler ; if you 

dance, you dance with a person with whom you had better have 

nothing to do. 

Note (which ladies are requested not to read). — In one of these 
establishments, daily advertised as most eligible for English, a 
friend of the writer lived. A lady, who had passed for some time 
as the wife of one of the inmates, suddenly changed her husband 
and name, her original husband remaining in the house, and 
saluting her by her new title. 


A CAUTION TO TRAVELLERS 


MILLION dangers and snares await the traveller, as soon 



as he issues out of that vast messagerie which we have just 


^ ^ quitted : and, as each man cannot do better than relate sueh 

events as have happened in the course of his own experience, and 
may keep the unwary from the path of danger, let us take this the 
very earliest opportunity of imparting to the public a little of the 
wisdom which we painfully have acquired. 

And first, then, with regard to the city of Paris, it is to be 
remarked, that in that metropolis flourish a greater number of 
native and exotic swindlers than are to be found in any otlier 
European nursery. What young Englishman tliat visits it, but 
has not determined, in his heart, to have a little share of the 
gaieties that go on — just for once, just to see what they are like 1 
How many, when the horrible gambling dens were open, did resist 
a sight of them? — nay, was not a young fellow rather flattered 
by a dinner invitation from the Salon, whither he went, fondly 
pretending that he should see “ French society,” in the persons of 
certain Dukes and Counts who used to frequent the place ? 

My friend Pogson is a young fellow, not much worse, although 
perhaps a little weaker and simpler than his neighbours ; and 
coming to Paris with exactly the same notions that bring many 
others of the British youth to that capital, events befell him there, 
last winter, which are strictly true, and shall here be narrated, by 
way of -warning to all. 

Pog, it must be premised, is a City man, who travels in drugs 
for a couple of the best London houses, blows the flute, has an 
album, drives his ovm gig, and is considered, both on the road and 
in the metropolis, a remarkably nice, intelligent, thriving young man. 
Pogson’s only fault is too great an attachment to the fair ; — “ The 
sex,” as he says often, “ will be his ruin : ” the fact is, that Pog 
never travels without a “ Don Juan ” under his driving-cushion, and 
is a pretty-looking young fellow enough. 

Sam Pogson had occasion to visit Paris last October ; and it 
was in that city that his love of the sex had like to have cost him 


A CAUTION TO TRAVELLERS ig 

dear. He worked his way down to Dover : placing, right and left, 
at the towns on his route, rhubarb, sodas, and other such delectable 
wares as his masters dealt in (“ the sweetest sample of castor-oil, 
smelt like a nosegay — went off like wildfire — hogshead and a half 
at Rochester, eight-and-twenty gallons at Canterbury,” and so on), 
and crossed to Calais, and thence voyaged to Paris in the coupe of 
the Diligence. He paid for two places, too, although a single man, 
and the reason shall now be made known. 

Dining at the tahle-dhote at “Quillacq’s” — it is the best inn on 
tlie Continent of Europe — our little traveller had the happiness to be 
placed next to a lady, who was, he saw at a glance, one of the extreme 
pink of the nobility. A large lady, in black satin, with eyes and hair 
as black as sloes, with gold chains, scent-bottles, sable tippet, worked 
pocket-handkerchief, and four twinkling rings on each of lier plump 
white fingers. Her cheeks were as pink as the finest Chinese rouge could 
make them. Pog knew the article : he travelled in it. Her lips were 
as red as the ruby lip-salve : she used the very best, that was clear. 

She was a fine-looking woman, certainly (holding down her eyes, 
and talking perpetually of “ mes, trente-deux ans ”) ; and Pogson, 
the wicked young dog, who professed not to care for young misses, 
saying they smelt so of bread-and-butter, declared, at once, that the 
lady was one of his beauties ; in fact, when he spoke to us about 
her, he said, “ She’s a slap-up thing, I tell you : a reg’lar good one ; 
one of my sort ! ” And such was Pogson’s credit in all commercial 
rooms, that one of his sort was considered to surpass all other sorts. 

During dinner-time, Mr. Pogson was profoundly polite and 
attentive to the lady at his side, and kindly communicated to her, 
as is the way with the best-bred English on their first arrival “ on 
the Continent,” all his impressions regarding the sights and persons 
he had seen. Such remarks having been made during half-an-hour’s 
ramble about the ramparts and town, and in the course of a walk 
down to the custom-house, and a confidential communication with 
the commissionaire, must be, doubtless, very valuable to Frenchmen 
in their own country ; and the lady listened to Pogson’s opinions, 
not only with benevolent attention, but actually, she said, with 
pleasure and delight. Mr. Pogson said that there was no such 
thing as good meat in France, and that’s why they cooked their 
victuals in this queer Avay; he had seen many soldiers parading 
about the place, and expressed a true Englishman’s abhorrence of an 
armed force ; not that he feared such fellows as these — little whipper- 
snappers — our men would eat them. Hereupon the lady admitted 
that our Guards were angels, but that Monsieur must not be too hard 
upon the French ; “her father was a General of the Emperor.” 

Pogson felt a tremendous respect for himself at the notion that 


20 


THE PARIS SKETCH BOOK 


he was uining Avith a General’s daughter, and instantly ordered a 
bottle of champagne to keep up his consequence. 

“ Mrs. Bironn, ma’am,” said he, for he had heard the waiter call 
her by some such name, “ if you will accept a glass of cliampagne, 
ma’am, you’ll do me, I’m sure, great Aonour : they say it’s very good, 
and a precious sight cheaper than it is on our side of the Avay, too — 
not that I care for money. Mrs. Bironn, ma’am, your health, ma’am.” 

Tlie lady smiled very graciously, and drank the wine. 

“ Har you any relation, ma’am, if I may make so bold ; har 
you anyways connected with the family of our immortal bard ? ” 

“ Sir, I beg your pardon.” 

“ Don’t mention it, ma’am : but Bironn and Byron are hevidently 
the same names, only you pronounce in the French AA-ay ; and I 
thought you might be related to his Lordship ; his horigin, ma’am, 
was of French extj’action : ” and here Pogson began to repeat — 

“ Hare thy heyes like thy mother’s, niy fair child, 

Hada ! sole daughter of my 'ouse and ’art ? ” ^ 

Oh ! ” said the lady, laughing, “ you speak of Lor Byron ? ” 

“ Hauthor of ‘ Don Juan,’ ‘ Child ’Arold,’ and ‘ Cain, a 
Mystery,’ ” said Pogson ; — “ I do ; and hearing the waiter calling 
you Madam la Bironn, took the liberty of basking whether you 
were connected Avith his Lordship : that’s hall ; ” and my friend 
here grew dreadfully red, and began tAviddling his long ringlets in 
his fingers, and examining very eagerly the contents of his plate. 

“ Oh, no : Madame la Baronne means Mistress Baroness ; my 
husband AAms Baron, and I am Baroness.” 

“ What ! ’ave I the honour — I beg your pardon, ma’am — is 
your Ladyship a Baroness, and I not knoAv it ? pray excuse me for 
calling you ma’am.” 

The Baroness smiled most graciously — with such a look as Juno 
ctist upon unfortunate Jupiter when she Avished to gain her wicked 
ends upon him — the Baroness smiled ; and, stealing her hand into 
a black velvet bag, dreAv from it an ivory card-case, and from the 
ivory card-case extracted a glazed card, printed in gold ; on it was 
engraved a coronet, and under the coronet the Avords 


BARONNE DE FLORVAL-DELVAL, 

NEE DE MELVAL-NOKVAL. 


Rue Taitbmit. 


Il 'll 


I IJ 



MR. POGSON’S temptation 






A CAUTION TO TRAVELLERS 


21 


The grand Pitt diamond — the Queen’s own star of the garter — 
a sample of otto-of-roses at a guinea a drop, would not be handled 
more curiously, or more respectfully, than this porcelain card of tlie 
Baroness. Trembling he put it into his little Russia-leather pocket- 
book : and when he ventured to look up, and saw the eyes of the 
Baroness de Florval-Delval, nde de Melval-Norval, gazing upon him 
with friendly and serene glances, a thrill of i)ride tingled througli 
Pogson’s blood : he felt himself to be the very happiest fellow “ on 
the Continent.” 

But Pogson did not, for some time, venture to resume that 
sprightly and elegant fiimiliarity which generally forms the great 
charm of his conversation : he was too much frightened at the 
l)resence he was in, and contented himself by graceful and solemn 
bows, deep attention, and ejaculations of “Yes, my Lady,” and 
“ No, your Ladyship,” for some minutes after the discovery had 
been made. Pogson piqued himself on his breeding ; “ I hate the 
aristocracy,” he said, “ but that’s no reason why I shouldn’t behave 
like a gentleman.” 

A surly silent little' gentleman, who had been the third at the 
ortlinary, and would take no part either in the conversation or in 
Pogson’s champagne, now took up his hat, and, grunting, left the 
room, when the happy bagman had the delight of a tete-a-tete. The 
Baroness did not appear inclined to move : it was cold : a fire was 
comfortable, and she had ordered none in her apartment. Might 
Pogson give her one more glass of champagne, or would her Ladyship 
prefer “something hot”? Her Ladyship gravely said, she never 
took anything hot. “ Some champagne, then ; a leetle drop ? ” 
She would ! she would ! 0 gods ! how Pogson’s hand shook as he 

filled and oftered her the glass ! 

What took place during the rest of the evening had better be 
described by Mr. Pogson himself, who has given us permission to 
publish his letter : — 

“Quillacq’s Hotel {pronounced Killyax), Calais. 

“ Dear Tit, — I arrived at Cally, as they call it, this day, or, 
rather, yesterday; for it is past midnight, as I sit thinking of a 
wonderful adventure that has just befallen me. A woman, in 
course ; that’s always the case with me, you know : but oh. Tit ! 
if you could but see her ! Of the first family in France, the 
Florval-Delvals, beautiful as an angel, and no more caring for money 
than I do for split peas. 

“I’ll tell you how it occurred. Everybody in France, you 
know, dines at the ordinary — it’s quite distangy to do so. There 
was only three of us to-day, however, — the Baroness, me, and a 


22 


THE PARIS SKETCH BOOK 


gent, who never spoke a word ; and we didn’t want him to, neither ; 
do you mark that ? 

“You know my way with the women : champagne’s the thing; 
make ’em drink, make ’em talk ; — make ’em talk, make ’em do any- 
thing. So I orders a bottle, as if for myself ; and, ‘ Ma’am,’ says I, 
‘ will you take a glass of Sham — ^just one 1 ’ Take it slie did — for 
you know it’s quite distangy here : everybody dines at the table de 
hole, and everybody accepts everybody’s wine. Bob Irons, who 
travels in linen on our circuit, told me that he had made some 
slap-up acquaintances among the genteelest people at Paris, notliing 
but by offering them Sham. 

“ Well, my Baroness takes one glass, two glasses, three glasses 
— the old fellow goes — we have a deal of chat (she took me for a 
military man, she said : is it not singular that so many peo])le 
should 1), and by ten o’clock we had grown so intimate, that I had 
from her her whole history, knew where she came from, and where 
she was going. Leave me alone with ’em : I can find out any 
woman’s history in half-an-hour. 

“ And where do you think she is going ? to Paris to be sure : 
she has her seat in what they call the coopy (though you’re not 
near so cooped in it as in our coaches. I’ve been to the office and 
seen one of ’em). She has her j)lace in the coopy, and the coopy 
holds three : so what does Sam Pogson do ? — he goes and takes tlie 
other two. Ain’t I up to a thing or two % Oh no, not the least ; 
but I shall have her to myself the whole of the way. 

“We shall be in the French metropolis the day after this 
reaches you : please look out for a handsome lodging for me, and 
never mind the expense. And I say, if you could, in her hearing, 
when you come down to the coach, call me Captain Pogson, I wish 
you would — it sounds well travelling, you know; and when she 
asked me if I was not an officer, I couldn’t say no. Adieu, then, 
my dear fellow, till Monday, and Vive le joy, as they say. The 
Baroness says I speak French charmingly ; she talks English as 
well as you or I. — Your affectionate friend, S. Pogson.” 

This letter reached us duly, in our garrets, and we engaged 
such an apartment for Mr. Pogson as beseemed a gentleman of his 
rank in the world and the army. At tlie appointed hour, too, we 
repaired to the Diligence office, and there beheld the arrival of the 
machine which contained him and his lovely Baroness. 

Those who have much frequented the society of gentlemen of 
his profession (and what more delightful?) must be aware that, 
when all the rest of mankind look hideous, dirty, peevish, wretched, 
after a forty hours’ coach-journey, a bagman appears as gay and 


A CAUTION TO TRAVELLERS 


23 


spruce as when he started; having within liimself a thousand little 
conveniences for the voyage, which common travellers neglect. 
Pogson had a little portable toilet, of which he had not failed to 
take advantage, and with his long, curling, tiaxeii hair, flowing under 
a sealskin cap, with a gold tassel, with a blue and gold satin hand- 
kerchief, a crimson velvet waistcoat, a light green cut-away coat, a 
pair of barred brick-dust-coloured pantaloons, and a neat mackintosh, 
presented, idtogether, as elegant and distingue an appearance as 
any one could desire. He had put on a clean collar at breakflxst, 
and a pair of white kids as he entered the barrier, and looked, as 
he rushed into my arms, more like a man stepping out of a bandbox, 
than one descending from a vehicle that has just performed one of 
the laziest, dullest, flattest, stalest, dirtiest journeys in Europe. 

To my surprise, there were two ladies in the coach with my 
friend, and not one, as I had expected. One of these, a stout female, 
carrying sundry baskets, bags, umbrellas, and woman’s wraps, was 
evidently a maid-servant : the other, in black, was Pogson’s fair 
one, evidently. I could see a gleam of curl-papers over a* sallow 
face, — of a dusky nightcap flapping over the curl-papers,— but these 
were hidden by a lace veil and a huge velvet bonnet, of which the 
crowning birds of paradise Avere evidently in a moulting state. She 
was encased in many shawls and' wrappers ; she put, hesitatingly, a 
I)retty little foot out of the carriage — Pogson was by her side in an 
instant, and, gallantly putting one of his white kids round her 
waist, aided this interesting creature to descend. I saw, by her 
walk, that she Avas five-and-forty, and that my little Pogson Avas a 
lost man. 

After some brief parley betAA^een them — in Avhich it Avas charming 
to hear how my friend Samuel would speak Avhat he called French 
to a lady who could not understand one syllable of his jargon — the 
mutual hackney-coaches drew up ; Madame la Baronne waved to 
the Captain a gi’aceful French curtsey. “ A<iyou ! ” said Samuel, 
and waved his- lily hand. “ Adyou-addiniang.^’ 

A brisk little gentleman, Avho had made the journey in the 
same coach with Pogson, but had more modestly taken a seat in 
tlie imperial, here passed us, and greeted me Avith a “How d’ye 
do?” He had shouldered his own little valise, and was trudging 
off, scattering a cloud of commissionaires, who would fain have 
spared him the trouble. 

“ Do you know that chap ? ” says Pogson ; “ surly fellow, 
ain’t he?” 

“ The kindest man in existence,” ansAvered I ; “ all the world 
knows little Major British.” 

“ He’s a Major, is he ? — Avhy, that’s the fellow that dined Avith 


24 


THE PARIS SKETCH BOOK 


us at Killyax’s ; it’s lucky I did not call myself Captain before him, 
he mightn’t have liked it, you know : ” and then Sam fell into a 
reverie ; — what was the subject of his thoughts soon appeared. 

“Did you ever see such a foot and ankle 1” said Sam, after 
sitting for some time, regardless of the novelty of the scene, his 
hands in his pockets, plunged in the deepest thought. 

“ Isn't she a slap-up woman, eh, now 1 ” pursued he ; and began 
enumerating her attractions, as a horse-jockey would the points of a 
favourite animal. 

“You seem to have gone a pretty length already,” said I, “by 
promising to visit her to-morrow.” 

“ A good length ? — I believe you. Leave me alone for that.” 

“ But I thought you were only to be two in the conp4, you 
wicked rogue.” 

“ Two in the coupy .? Oh ! ah ! yes, you know— why, that is, 
I didn’t know she liad her maid with her (what an ass I was to 
think of a noblewoman travelling without one !) and couldn’t, in 
course, refuse, when she asked me to let the maid in.” 

“Of course not.” 

“Couldn’t, you know, as a man of honour; but I made up for 
all that,” said Pogson, winking slily, and putting his hand to his 
little bunch of a nose, in a very knowing way. 

“You did, and howr’ 

“ Why, you dog, I sat next to her ; sat in the middle the whole 
way, and my back’s half broke, I can tell you : ” and thus having 
depicted his happiness, we soon reached the inn where this back- 
broken young man was to lodge during his stay in Paris. 

The next day, at five, we met ; Mr. Pogson had seen his Baroness, 
and described her lodgings, in his own expressive way, as “slap- 
up.” She had received him quite like an old friend ; treated him 
to eau sucree, of which beverage he expressed himself a great 
admirer ; and actually asked him to dine the next day. But there 
was a cloud over the ingenuous youth’s brow, and I- inquired still 
further. 

“ Why,” said he, with a sigh, “ I thought she was a widow ; 
and, hang it ! who should come in but her husband the Baron ; a 
big fellow, sir, with a blue coat, a red ribbing, and such a pair of 
mustachios ! ” 

“ Well,” said I, “ he didn’t turn you out, I suppose 1 ” 

“ Oh no ! on the contrary, as kind as possible ; his Lordship 
said that he respected the English army ; asked me what corps I 
was in, — said he had fouglit in Spain against us, — and made me 
welcome.” 

“ What could you want more ? ” 


A CAUTION TO TRAVELLERS 


25 


Mr. Pogsoii at this only whistled ; and if some very profound 
observer of human nature had been there to read into this little 
bagman’s heart, it would, perhaps, have been manifest, that the 
appearance of a whiskered soldier of a husband had counteracted 
some plans that the young scoundrel was concocting. 

I live up a hundred and thirty-seven steps in the remote quarter 
of the Luxembourg, and it is not to be expected that such a 
fashionable fellow as Sam Pogson, with his pockets full of money, 
and a new city to see, should be always wandering to my dull 
quarters ; so that, although he did not make his appearance for 
some time, he must not be accused of any lukewarmness of friendship 
on that score. 

He was out, too, when I called at his hotel ; but once, I had 
the good fortune to see him, with his hat curiously on one side, 
looking as pleased as Punch, and being driven, in an open cab, in 
the Champs Elysdes. “ That’s another tiptop chap,” said he, 
when we met, at length. “ What do you think of an Earl’s son, 
my boy % Honourable Tom Ringwood, son of the Earl of Cinqbars : 
what do you think of that, eh % ” 

I thought he was getting into very good society. Sam was a 
dashing fellow, and was always above his own line of life ; he had 
met Mr. Ringwood at the Baron’s, and they’d been to the play to- 
gether ; and the Honourable gent, as Sam called him, had joked 
with him about being well to do in a certain quarter ; and he had 
had a game of billiards with the Baron, at the Estaminy, “ a very 
distangy place, where you smoke,” said Sam ; “ quite select, and 
frequented by the tiptop nobility ; ” and they were as thick as peas 
in a shell ; and they were to dine that day at Ringwood’s, and sup, 
the next night, with the Baroness. 

“ I think the chaps down the road will stare,” said Sam, “ when 
they hear how I’ve been coming it.” And stare, no doubt, they 
would ; for it is certain that very few commercial gentlemen have 
had Mr. Pogson’s advantages. 

The next morning we had made an arrangement to go out 
shopping together, and to purchase some articles of female gear, that 
Sam intended to bestow on his relations when he returned. Seven 
needle-books, for his sisters ; a gilt buckle, for his mamma ; a 
handsome French cashmere shawl and bonnet, for his aunt (the old 
lady keeps an inn in the Borough, and has plenty of money, and no 
heirs) ; and a toothpick case, for his father. Sam is a good fellow 
to all his relations, and as for his aunt, he adores her. Well, we 
were to go and make these purchases, and I arrived punctually 
at my time; but Sam was stretched on a sofa, very pale and 
dismal. 


26 


THE PARIS SKETCH BOOK 


I saw how it had been. — “A little too much of Mr. Ringwood’s 
claret, I suppose 1 ” 

He only gave a sickly stare. 

“ Where does the Honourable Tom live 1 ” says I. 

‘^Honourable!” says Sam, with a hollow horrid laugh: “I 
tell you. Tit, he’s no more Honourable than you are.” 

“ What, an impostor 1 ” 

“ No, no ; not that. He is a real Honourable, oidy ” 

“ Oh, ho ! I smell a rat — a little jealous, eh ? ” 

“ Jealousy be hanged ! I tell you he’s a thief ; and the Baron’s 
a thief ; and, hang me, if I think his wife is any better. Eight- 
and-thirty pounds he won of me before supper ; and made me drunk, 
and sent me home is that honourable '? Plow can I afford to 
lose forty pounds 1 It’s took me two years to save it up : — if my 
old aunt gets wind of it, she’ll cut me off with a shilling : hang 
me ! ” — and here Sam, in an agony, tore his fair hair. 

While bewailing his lot in this lamentable strain, his bell was 
rung, which signal being answered by a surly “Come in,” a tall, 
very fashionable gentleman, with a fur coat, and a fierce tuft to his 
cliin, entered the room. “ Pogson, my buck, how goes it ? ” said he 
familiarly, and gave a stare at me : I was making for my hat. 

“Don’t go,” said Sam, rather eagerly; and I sat down again. 

The Honourable Mr. Ringwood liummed and ha’d : and, :it last, 
said he wished to speak to Mr. Pogson on business, in private, if 
possible. 

“ Tliere’s no secrets betwixt me and my friend,” cried Sam. 

Mr. Ringwood paused a little : — “ An awkward business that of 
last night,” at length exclaimed he. 

“I believe it ivas an awkward business,” said Sam dryly. 

“ I really am very sorry for your losses.” 

“ Thank you : and so am I, / can tell you,” said Sam. 

“You must mind, my good fellow, and not drink ; for, when 
you drink, you ivill play high : by Gad, you led us on, and not 
we you.” 

“ I dare say,” answered Sam, with something of ])eevishness ; 
“ losses is losses : there’s no use talking about ’em when they’re 
over and paid.” 

“ And paid 'I ” here wonderingly spoke Mr. Ringwood ; “ why, 
my dear fel — what the deuce — has Florval been with you 1 ” 

“ D Florval ! ” growled Sam, “ I’ve never set eyes on his 

face since last night ; and never wish to see him again.” 

“ Come, come, enough of this talk : how do you intend to settle 
the bills which you gave him last night 1 ” 

“ Bills ! what do you mean 1 ” 


A CAUTION TO TRAVELLERS 


27 


“ I mean, sir, these bills,” said the Honourable Tom, producing 
two out of his pocket-book, and looking as stern as a lion. “‘I 
promise to pay, on demand, to the Baron de Florval, the sum of 
four hundred pounds. October 20, 1838.’ ‘Ten days after date 
I promise to pay the Baron de et csetera, et csetera, one hundred and 
ninety-eight pounds. Samuel Pogson.’ You didn’t say what regi- 
ment you were in.” 

“ What ! ” shouted poor Sam, as from a dream, starting up, and 
looking preternaturally pale and hideous. 

“ D it, sir, you don’t affect ignorance ; you don’t pretend 

not to remember that you signed these bills, for money lost in my 
rooms : money lent to you, by Madame de Florval, at your own 
request, and lost to her husband 1 You don’t supxwse, sir, that I 
shall be such an infernal idiot as to believe you, or such a coward 
as to i^ut up with a mean subterfuge of this sort. AVill you, or will 
you not, pay the money, sir % ” 

“ I will not,” said Sam stoutly ; “ it’s a d — d swin ” 

Here Mr. Ringwood sprang up, clenching his riding-whip, and 
looking so fierce, that Sam and I bounded back to the other end of 
the room. “Utter that word again, and, by Heaven, I’ll murder 
you ! ” shouted Mr. Ringwood, and looked as if he would, too : 
“ once more, will you, or will you not, pay this money 1 ” 

“ I can’t,” said Sam faintly. 

“ I’ll call again. Captain Pogson,” said Mr. Ringwood, “ I’ll call 
again in one hour ; and, unless you come to some arrangement, you 
must meet my friend, the Baron de Florval, or I’ll post you for a 
swindler and a coward.” With this he went out : the door thundered 
to after him, and when the clink of his steps departing had subsided, 
I was enabled to look round at Pog. The poor little man had his 
elbows on the marble table, his head between his hands, and looked 
as one has seen gentlemen look over a steam-vessel off’ Ramsgate, 
the wind blowing remarkably fresh : at last he fairly burst out 
crying. 

“If Mrs. Pogson heard of this,” said I, “what would become 
of the ‘ Three Tuns ” (for I wished to give him a lesson). “If 
your ma, who took you every Sunday to meeting, should know 
that her boy was paying attention to married women ; — if Drench, 
Glauber, & Co., your employers, were to know that their confidential 
agent was a gambler, and unfit to be trusted with their money, how 
long do you think your connection would last with them, and who 
would afterwards employ you % ” 

To this poor Pog had not a word of answer ; but sat on his sofa 
whimpering so bitterly, that the sternest of moralists would have 
relented towards him, and would have been touched by the little 


28 


THE PARIS SKETCH BOOK 


wretch’s tears. Everything, too, must be pleaded in excuse for 
this unfortunate bagman ; who, if he wished to pass for a captain, 
had only done so because he had an intense respect and longing 
for rank : if he had made love to the Baroness, had only done so 
because he was given to understand by Lord Byron’s “Don Juan” 
that making love was a very correct natty thing : and if he had 
gambled, had only been induced to do so by the bright eyes and 
example of the Baron and the Baroness. 0 ye Barons and 
Baronesses of England ! if ye knew what a number of small 
commoners are daily occupied in studying your lives, and imitating 
your aristocratic ways, how careful would ye be of your morals, 
manners, and conversation ! 

My soul was filled, then, with a gentle yearning pity for 
Pogson, and revolved many plans for his rescue : none of these 
seeming to be practicable; at last we hit on the very wisest of 
all, and determined to apply for counsel to no less a person than 
Major British. 

A blessing it is to be acquainted ^vith my worthy friend, little 
Major British ; and Heaven, sure, it was that jjut the Major into 
my head, when I heard of this awkward scrape of poor Pog’s. 
The Major is on half-pay, and occupies a modest apartment, au 
quatrieme, in the very hotel which Pogson had patronised at my 
suggestion; indeed, I had chosen it from Major British’s own 
peculiar recommendation. 

There is no better guide to follow than such a character as the 
honest Major, of whom there are many likenesses now scattered 
over the continent of Europe : men who love to live well, and are 
forced to live cheaply, and who find the English abroad a thousand 
times easier, merrier, and more hospitable than the same persons 
at home. I, for my part, never landed on Calais pier without 
feeling that a load of sorrows was left on the other side of the 
water ; and have always fancied that black care stepped on board 
the steamer, along vith the custom-house otficers, at Gravesend, 
and accompanied one to yonder black lowering towers of London — 
so busy, so dismal, and so vast. 

British would have cut any foreigner’s throat who ventured to 
say so much, but entertained, no doubt, private sentiments of this 
nature; for he passed eight months of the year, regularly, abroad, 
with headquarters at Paris (the garrets before alluded to), and only 
went to England for the montli’s shooting, on the grounds of his 
old colonel, now an old lord, of whose acquaintance the Major was 
passably inclined to boast. 

He loved and respected, like a good stanch Tory as he is, 
every one of the English nobility ; gave himself certain little airs 


A CAUTION TO TRAVELLERS 


29 


of a man of fashion, that were by no means disagreeable ; and was, 
indeed, kindly regarded by such English aristocracy as he met in 
Ids little annual tours among the German Courts, in Italy, or in 
Paris, where he never missed an ambassador’s night : he retailed 
to us, who didn’t go, but were delighted to know all that had taken 
place, accurate accounts of the dishes, the dresses, and the scandal 
which had there fallen under his observation. 

He is, moreover, one of the most useful persons in society that 
can possibly be ; for besides being incorrigibly duelsome on his own 
account, he is, for others, the most acute and peaceable counsellor 
in the world, and has carried more friends through scrapes and 
prevented more deaths than any member of the Humane Society. 
British never bought a single step in the army, as is well known. 
In ’14 he killed a celebrated French fire-eater, who had slain a 
young friend of his, and living, as he does, a great deal with young 
men of pleasure, and good old sober family people, he is loved by 
them both, and has as welcome a place made for him at a roaring 
bachelor’s supper at the “ Cafd Anglais,” as at a staid dowager’s 
dinner-table in the Faubourg St. Honor^. Such pleasant old boys 
are very profitable acquaintances, let me tell you ; and lucky is the 
young man who has one or two such friends in his list. 

Hurrying on Pogson in his dress, I conducted him, panting, up 
to the Major’s quatrieme, where we were cheerfully bidden to come 
in. The little gentleman was in his travelling jacket, and occupied 
in painting, elegantly, one of those natty pairs of boots in which he 
daily promenaded the Boulevards. A couple of pairs of tough buff 
gloves had been undergoing some pipe-claying operation under his 
hands ; no man stepped out so spick and span, with a hat so nicely 
brushed, with a stiff cravat tied so neatly under a fat little red face, 
with a blue frock-coat so scrupulously fitted to a punchy little person, 
as Major British, about whom we have written these two pages. He 
stared rather hardly at my companion, but gave me a kind shake of 
the hand, and we proceeded at once to business. “ Major Britisli,” 
said I, “ we want your advice in regard to an unpleasant affair which 
has just occurred to my friend Pogson.” 

“ Pogson, take a chair.” 

“You must know, sir, that Mr. Pogson, coming from Calais the 
other day, encountered, in the diligence, a very handsome woman.” 

British winked at Pogson, who, wretched as he was, could not 
help feeling pleased. 

“ Mr. Pogson was not more pleased with this lovely creature than 
was she with him ; for, it appears, she gave him her card, invited 
him to her house, where he has been constantly, and has been received 
with much kindness.” 


so 


THE PARIS SKETCH BOOK 


I see,” says British. 

Her husband the Baron ” 

“ iYo?e it’s coming,” said the Major, with a grin : “ her husband 
is jealous, I suppose, and there is a talk of the Bois de Boulogne : 
my dear sir, you can’t refuse — can’t refuse.” 

“ It’s not that,” said Pogson, wagging his head passionately. 

“ Her husband the Baron seemed quite as much taken with 
Pogson as his lady was, and has introduced him to some very dis- 
tingue friends of his own set. Last night one of the Baron’s friends 
gave a party in honour of my friend Pogson, who lost thirty-eight 
pounds at cards before he was made drunk, and Heaven knows how 
much after.” 

“Not a shilling, by sacred Heaven ! — not a shilling ! ” yelled out 
Pogson. “ After the supper I ’ad such an ’eadach’, I couldn’t do any- 
thing but fall asleep on the sofa.” 

“You ’ad such an ’eadach’, sir,” said British sternly, wlio 
piques himself on his grammar and pronunciation, and scorns a 
cockney. 

“ Such a A-eadache, sir,” replied Pogson, with much meekness. 

“ The unfortunate man is brought home at two o’clock, as tipsy 
as possible, dragged upstairs, senseless, to bed, and, on waking, receives 
a visit from his entertainer of the night before — a lord’s son. Major, 
a tiptop fellow, — who brings a couple of bills that my friend Pogson 
is said to have signed.” 

“ Well, my dear fellow, the thing’s quite simple, — he must pay 
them.” 

“ I can’t pay them.” 

“ He can’t pay them,” said we both in a breath : “ Pogson is a 
commercial traveller, with thirty shillings a week, and how the deuce 
is he to pay five hundred pounds % ” 

“A bagman, sir! and what right has a bagman to gamble*? 
Gentlemen gamble, sir ; tradesmen, sir, have no business with the 
amusements of the gentry. What business had you with barons 
and lords’ sons, sir? — serve you right, sir.” 

“ Sir,” says Pogson, with some dignity, “ merit, and not birth, 
is the criterion of a man : I despise an hereditary aristocracy, and 
admire only Nature’s gentlemen. For my part, I tliink that a 
British merch ” 

“Hold your tongue, sir,” bounced out the Major, “and don’t 
lecture me ; don’t come to me, sir, with your slang about Nature’s 
gentlemen — Nature’s tomfools, sir! Did Nature open a cash 
account for you at a banker’s, sir ! Did Nature give you an edu- 
cation, sir ? What do you mean by competing with people to 
whom Nature has given all these things? Stick to your bags, 


A CAUTION TO TRAVELLERS 


SI 


Mr. Pogson, and your bagmen, and leave barons and their like to 
their own ways.” 

“ Yes, but. Major,” here cried that faithful friend, who has 
always stood by Pogson ; “ they won’t leave him alone.” 

“ The Honourable gent says I must fight if I don’t pay,” 
whimpered Sam. 

“ What ! fight you ? Do you mean that the Honourable gent, 
as you call him, will go out with a bagman ? ” 

“ He doesn’t know I’m a — I’m a commercial man,” blushingly 
said Sam ; “he fancies I’m a military gent.” 

The Major’s gravity was quite upset at tliis absurd notion; 
and he laughed outrageously. “Why, the fact is, sir,” said I, 
“ that my friend Pogson, knowing the value of the title of captain, 
and being complimented by the Baroness on his warlike appearance, 
said, boldly, he was in the army. He only assumed the rank in 
order to dazzle her weak imagination, never fancying that there was 
a husband, and a circle of friends, with wliom he was afterwards to 
make an acquaintance; and then, you know, it was too late to 
withdraw.” 

“A pretty pickle you have put yourself in, Mr. Pogson, by 
making love to other men’s wives, and calling yourself names,” said 
the Major, who was restored to good-humour. “ And, pray, who is 
the honourable gent 1 ” 

“The Earl of Cinqbars’ son,” says Pogson, “the Honourable 
Tom Ringwood.” 

“ I thought it was some such character : and the Baron is the 
Baron de Florval-Delval 1 ” 

“ The very same.” 

“ And his wife a black-haired woman, with a pretty foot and 
ankle ; calls herself Athenais ; and is always talking about her trente- 
deux ans ? Why, sir, that woman was an actress on the Boulevard 
when we were here in ’15. She’s no more his wife than I am. 
Delval’s name is Chicot. The woman is always travelling between 
London and Paris : I saw she was hooking you at Calais ; she has 
hooked ten men, in the course of the last two years, in this very 
way. She lent you money, didn’t she ? ” “ Yes.” “ And she leans 
on your shoulder, and whispers, ‘ Play half for me,’ and somebody 
wins it, and the poor thing is as sorry as you are, and her husband 
storms and rages, and insists on double stakes ; and she leans over 
your shoulder again, and tells every card in your hand to your 
adversary ; and that’s the way it’s done, Mr. Pogson.” 

“ I’ve been ’ad, I see I ’ave,” said Pogson very humbly. 

“Well, sir,” said the Major, “in consideration, not of you, sir 
— for, give me leave to tell you, Mr. Pogson, that you are a pitiful 


3 ^ 


THE PARIS SKETCH BOOK 


little scoundrel — in consideration for my Lord Cinqbars, sir, with 
whom, I am proud to say, I am intimate ” (the Major dearly loved 
a lord, and was, by his own showing, acquainted with half the 
peerage), “ I will aid you in this affair. Your cursed vanity, sir, 
and want of principle, has set you, in the first place, intriguing with 
other men’s wives; and if you had been shot for your pains, a 
bullet would have only served you right, sir. You must go about as 
an impostor, sir, in society ; and you pay richly for your swindling, 
sir, by being swindled yourself : but, as I think your punishment 
has been already pretty severe, I shall do my best, out of regard 
for my friend. Lord Cinqbars, to x>revent the matter going any 
further ; and I recommend you to leave Paris without delay. Now 
let me wish you a good morning.” — Wherewith British made a 
majestic bow, and began giving the last touch to his varnished boots. 

We departed : poor Sam perfectly silent and chapfallen ; and 
I meditating on the wisdom of the half-pay philosopher, and won- 
dering what means he would employ to rescue Pogson from his 
fate. 

What these means were I know not ; but Mr. Ringwood did 
7iot make his appearance at six ; and, at eight, a letter arrived for 
“ Mr. Pogson, commercial traveller,” &c. &c. It was blank inside, 
but contained his two bills. Mr. Ringwood left town, almost 
immediately, for Vienna; nor did the Major explain the circum- 
stances which caused his departure : but he muttered something 
about “ knew some of his old tricks,” “ threatened police, and 
made him disgorge directly.” 

Mr. Ringwood is, as yet, young at his trade ; and I have often 
thought it was very green of him to give up the bills to the Major, 
who, certainly, woidd never have pressed the matter before the 
police, out of respect for his friend Lord Cinqbars. 


THE FSTES of JULY 


IN A LETTER TO THE EDITOR OF THE “BUNGAY BEACON” 


Paris : July 30, 1839. 

W E have arrived here just in time for the ^tes of July. — 
You have read, no doubt, of that glorious Revolution 
which took place here nine years ago, and which is now 
commemorated annually, in a pretty facetious manner, by gun-firing, 
student-processions, pole-climbing-for-silver-spoons, gold-watches, and 
legs-of-mutton, monarchical orations, and what not, and sanctioned, 
moreover, by Chamber-of-Deputies, with a grant of a couple of 
hundred thousand francs to defray the expenses of all the crackers 
gun-firings, and legs-of-mutton aforesaid. There is a new fountain 
in the Place Louis Quinze, otherwise called the Place Louis Seize, 
or else the Place de la Revolution, or else the Place de la Concorde 
(who can say why 1) — which, I am told, is to run bad wine during 
certain hours to-morrow, and there ivould have been a review of 
the National Guards and the Line — only, since the Fieschi business, 
reviews are no joke, and so this latter part of the festivity has been 
discontinued. 

Do you not laugh, 0 Pharos of Bungay, at the continuance of 
a humbug such as this 1 — at the humbugging anniversary of a hum- 
bug? The King of the Barricades is, next to the Emperor Nicholas, 
the most absolute Sovereign in Europe; yet there is not in the 
wliole of this fair kingdom of France a single man who cares six- 
pence about him, or his dynasty : except, mayhap, a few hangers-on 
at the Chateau, who eat his dinners, and put their hands in his 
I)urse. The feeling of loyalty is as dead as old Charles the Tenth ; 
the Chambers have been laughed at, the country has been laughed 
at, all the successive ministries have been laughed at (and you. know 
who is the wag that has amused himself with them all) ; and, 
behold, here come three days at the end of July, and cannons 
think it necessary to fire off, squibs and crackers to blaze and 
fizz, fountains to run wine, kings to make speeches, and sub- 
jects to crawl up greasy mdts-ds-cocagne in token of gratitude 
5 C 


34 


THE PARIS SKETCH BOOK 


and rejouissance 2 )ublique ! — My dear sir, in their aj)titnde to 
swallow, to litter, to enact humbugs, these French people, from 
Majesty downwards, beat all the other nations of this earth. In 
looking at these men, their manners, dresses, opinions, politics, 
actions, history, it is impossible to preserve a grave countenance ; 
instead of having Carlyle to write a History of the French 
Revolution, I often think it should be handed over to Dickens or 
Theodore Hook : and oh ! where is the Rabelais to be the faithful 
historian of the last phase of the Revolution — ^the last glorious 
nine years of which we are now commemorating the last glorious 
three days ? 

I had made a vow not to say a syllable on the subject, although 
I have seen, with my neighbours, all the gingerbread stalls down 
the Champs Elys^es, and some of the “ catafalques ” erected to the 
memory of the heroes of July, where the students and others, not 
connected personally with the victims, and not having in the least 
profited by their deaths, come and weep ; but the grief shown on 
the first day is quite as absurd and fictitious as the joy exhibited 
on the last. The subject is one which admits of much wholesome 
reflection and food for mirth ; and, besides, is so richly treated by 
the French themselves, that it would be a sin and a shame to pass 
it over. Allow me to have the honour of translating, for your 
edification, an account of the first day’s proceedings — it is mighty 
amusing, to my thinking. 

CELEBRATION OF THE DAYS OF JULY. 

“ To-day (Satiirday), funeral ceremonies, in honour of the 
victims of July, were held in the various edifices consecrated to 
public worship. 

“ These edifices, with the exception of some churches (espeeially 
that of the Petits-Pferes), were uniformly hung with black on the 
outside; the hangings bore only this inscription: 27, 28, 29 July 
1830 — suiTounded by a wreath of oak-leaves. 

“ In the interior of the Catholic churches, it had only been 
thought proper to dress little catafalques, as for burials of the 
third and fourth class. Very few clergy attended; but a con- 
siderable number of the National Guard. 

“ The Synagogue of the Israelites was entirely hung with black ; 
and a great concourse of people attended. The service was per- 
formed with the greatest pomp. 

“In the Protestant temples there was likewise a very full 
attendance : apologetical discourses on the Revolution of July were 
pronounced by the pastors. 


35 


THE FETES OF JULY 

“ The absence of M. de Qudlen (Archbishop of Paris), and of 
many members of the superior clergy, was remarked at Notre 
Dame. 

“The civil authorities attended service in their several dis- 
tricts. 

“ The poles, ornamented with tricoloured flags, which formerly 
were placed on Notre Dame, were, it was remarked, suppressed. 
The flags on the Pont Neuf were, during the ceremony, only half- 
mast high, and covered with crape.” 

Et csetera, et csetera, et csetera. 

“ The tombs of the Louvre were covered with black hangings, 
and adorned with tricoloured flags. In front and in the middle 
was erected an expiatory monument of a pyramidical shape, and 
surmounted by a funeral vase. 

“ These tombs ivere guarded by the Municipal Guard, the 
Troops of the Line, the Sergents de Ville {toivu patrol)^ 
AND A Brigade of Agents of Police in plain clothes, under 
the orders of peace-officer Vassal. 

“ Between eleven and twelve o’clock, some young men, to the 
number of 400 or 500, assembled on the Place de la Bourse, one 
of them bearing a tricoloured banner with an inscription, ‘ To the 
Manes of July’: ranging themselves in order, they marched five 
abreast to the Marclffi des Innocents. On their arrival, the Muni- 
cipal Guards of the Halle aux Draps, where the post had been 
doubled, issued out without arms, and the town-sergeants placed 
themselves before the market to prevent the entry of the procession. 
The young men passed in perfect order, and without saying a word 
— only lifting their hats as tliey defiled before the tombs. When 
they arrived at the Louvre they found the gates shut, and the 
Garden evacuated. The troops were under arms, and formed in 
battalion. 

“After the passage of the procession, the Garden was again 
open to the public.” 


And the evening and the morning were the first day. 

There’s nothing serious in mortality : is there, from the beginning 
of this account to the end thereof, aught but sheer, open, monstrous, 
undisguised humbug % I said, before, that you should have a history 
of these people by Dickens or Theodore Hook, but there is little 
need of professed wags ; — do not the men write their own tale with 
an admirable Sancho-like gravity and naivete, which one could not 


36 


THE PARIS SKETCH BOOK 


desire improved How good is that touch of sly indignation about 
the little catafalques ! how rich the contrast presented by the 
economy of the Catholics to the splendid disregard of expense 
exhibited by the devout Jews ! and how touching the “ apolo- 
getical discourses on the Revolution,” delivered by the Protestant 
pastors ! Fancy the profound affliction of the Gardes Munici- 
paux, the Sergents de Ville, the police agents in plain clotlies, 
and the troops with fixed bayonets, sobbing round the “ ex- 
piatory monuments of a pyramidical shape, surmounted by funeral 
vases,” and compelled, by sad duty, to fire into the public who 
might wish to indulge in the same woe ! 0 “ Manes of July ! ” 

(the phrase is pretty and grammatical) why did you with sharp 
bullets break those Louvre windows'? Why did you bayonet red- 
coated Swiss behind that fair white facade, and, braving cannon, 
musket, sabre, prospective guillotine, burst yonder bronze gates, 
rush through that peaceful picture-gallery, and hurl royalty, loyalty, 
and a thousand years of Kings, head-over-heels out of yonder 
Tuileries windows ? 

It is, you will allow, a little difficult to say : — there is, how- 
ever, one benefit that the country has gained (as for liberty of 
press or person, diminished taxation, a juster representation, who 
ever thinks of them '?) — one benefit they have gained, or nearly 
— abolition de la peine de mort pour delit politique : no more 
wicked guillotining for revolutions. A Frenchman must have 
his revolution — it is his nature to knock down omnibuses in the 
street, and across them to fire at troops of the line — it is a sin 
to balk it. Did not the King send off Revolutionary Prince 
Napoleon in a coach-and-four "? Did not the jury, before the face 
of God and Justice, proclaim Revolutionary Colonel Vaudrey not 
guilty 1 — One may hope, soon, that if a man shows decent courage 
and energy in half-a-dozen emeutes, he will get promotion and a 
premium. 

I do not (although, perhaps, partial to the subject) want to talk 
more nonsense than the occasion warrants, and will pray you to cast 
your eyes over the following anecdote, that is now going the round 
of the papers, and respects the commutation of the punishment of 
that wretched, foolhardy Barbas, who, on his trial, seemed to invite 
the penalty which has just been remitted to him. You recollect 
the braggart’s speech : When the Indian falls into the power of 
the enemy, he knows the fate that awaits him, and submits his 
head to the knife ; — I am the Indian ! ” 

» Well ” 


“ M. Hugo was at the Opera on the night the sentence of the 


THE FETES OF JULY 37 

Court of Peers, condemning Barbas to death, was published. The 
great poet composed the following verses : — 

" ‘ Par votre ange envole, ainsi qu’une colombe, 

Par le royal enfant, doux et fr^le roseau, 

Grdce, encore une fois ! Gr4ce, an nom de la tombe ! 

Grace, an nom du berceau ! ’ * 

“ M. Victor Hugo wrote the lines out instantly on a sheet of 
paper, which he folded, and simply despatched them to the King of 
the French by the penny-post. 

“ That truly is a noble voice which can at all hours thus speak 
to the throne. Poetry, in old days, was called the language of the 
gods — it is better named now — it is the language of the Kings. 

“ But the clemency of the King had anticipated the letter of the 
Poet. His Majesty had signed the commutation of Barbas, while 
the poet was still writing. 

“ Louis Philippe replied to the author of ‘ Buy Bias ’ most 
graciously, that he had already subscribed to a wish so noble, and 
that the verses had only confirmed his previous disposition to 
mercy.” 

Now, in countries where fools most abound, did one ever read 
of more monstrous palpable folly'? In any country, save this, 
would a poet who chose to write four crack-brained verses comparing 
an angel to a dove, and a little boy to a reed, and calling upon the 
chief magistrate, in the name of the angel, or dove (the Princess 
Mary), in her tomb, and the little infant in his cradle, to spare a 
criminal, have received a “gracious answer” to his nonsense'? 
Would he have ever despatched the nonsense'? and would any jour- 
nalist have been silly enough to talk of “ the noble voice that could 
thus speak to the throne,” and the noble throne that could return 
such a noble answer to the noble voice 'I You get nothing done here 
gravely and decently. Tawdry stage tricks are played, and bragga- 
docio claptraps uttered, on every occasion, however sacred or solemn : 
in the face of death, as by Barbas with his hideous Indian metaphor ; 
in the teeth of reason, as by M. Victor Hugo with his twopenny- 
post poetry ; and of justice, as by the King’s absurd reply to this 
absurd demand ! Suppose, the Count of Paris to be twenty times 
a reed, and the Princess Mary a host of angels, is that any reason 

* Translated for the benefit of country gentlemen 

‘ ‘ By your angel flown away just like a dove. 

By the royal infant, that frail and tender reed. 

Pardon yet once more ! Pardon in the name of the tomb ! 

Pardon in the name of the cradle ! ” 


38 


THE PARIS SKETCH BOOK 


why the law should not have its course'? Justice is the God of our 
lower world, our great omnipresent guardian ; as such it moves, or 
should move on, majestic, awful, irresistible, having no passions — 
like a God : but, in the very midst of the path across which it is 
to pass, lo ! M. Victor Hugo trips forward, smirking, and says, 0 
divine Justice ! I will trouble you to listen to the following trifling 
effusion of mine : — 

“ Par votre ange envole, ainsi qu’une,’' &c. 

Awful Justice stops, and, bowing gravely, listens to M. Hugo’s 
verses, and, with true French politeness, says, “ Mon cher Monsieur, 
these verses are charming, ravissarits, de'licieux, and, coming from 
such a cele'brite litteraire as yourself, shall meet Avith every possible 
attention— in fact, had I required anything to confirm my own 
previous opinions, this charming poem would have done so. Bon 
jour, mon cher Monsieur Hugo, au revoir ! ” — and they part : — ■ 
Justice taking off his hat and bowing, and the Author of “ Ruy 
Bias ” quite convinced that he has been treating with him d'egal 
a egal. I can hardly bring my mind to fancy that anything is 
serious in France — it seems to be all rant, tinsel, and stage-play. 
Sham liberty, sham monarchy, sham glory, sham justice, — oil diable 
done la verite va-t-elle se nicher 1 


The last rocket of the fete of July has just mounted, exploded, 
made a portentous bang, and emitted a gorgeous show of blue- 
lights, and then (like many reputations) disappeared totally : the 
hundredth gun on the Invalides terrace has uttered its last roar — 
and a great comfort it is for eyes and ears that the festival is over. 
We shall be able to go about our every-day business again, and not 
be hustled by the gendarmes or the crowd. 

The sight which I have just come away from is as brilliant, 
happy, and beautiful as can be conceived ; and if you want to see 
French people to the greatest advantage, you should go to a 
festival like this, where their manners and innocent gaiety show a 
very pleasing contrast to the coarse and vulgar hilarity which the 
same class would exhibit in our own country — at Epsom racecourse, 
for instance, or Greenwich Fair. The greatest noise that I heard 
was that of a company of jolly villagers from a place in the neigh 
bourhood of Paris, who, as soon as the fireworks were over, formed 
themselves into a line, three or four abreast, and so marched 
singing home. As for the fireworks, squibs and crackers are very 
hard to describe, and very little was to be seen of them : to me, 
the prettiest sight was the vast, orderly, happy crowd, the number 


THE FETES OF JULY 39 

of children, and the extraordinary care and kindness of the parents 
towards these little creatures. It does one good to see honest 
heavy epiciers^ fathers of families, playing with them in the 
Tuileries, or, as to-night, bearing them stoutly on their shoulders, 
through many long hours, in order that the little ones, too, may 
have their share of the fun. John Bull, I fear, is more selfish : he 
does not take Mrs. Bull to the public-house ; but leaves her, for 
the most part, to take care of the children at home. 

The fete, then, is over; the pompous black pyramid at the 
Louvre is only a skeleton now ; all the flags have been miraculously 
whisked away during the night, and the fine chandeliers which 
glittered down the Champs Elysdes for full half a mile have been 
consigned to their dens and darkness. Will they ever be reproduced 
for other celebrations of the glorious 29th of July'? — I think not; 
the Government which vowed that there should be no more perse- 
cutions of the press, was, on that very 29th, seizing a Legitimist 
paper, for some real or fancied offence against it : it had seized, and 
was seizing daily, numbers of persons merely suspected of being 
disaffected (and you may fancy how liberty is understood, when 
some of these prisoners, the other day, on coming to trial, were 
found guilty and sentenced to one day’s imprisonment, after thirty- 
six days^ detention on suspicion). I think the Government which 
follows such a system cannot be very anxious about any further 
revolutionary fetes, and that the Chamber may reasonably refuse to 
vote more money for them. Why should men be so mighty proud 
of having, on a certain day, cut a certain number of their fellow- 
countrymen’s throats? The Guards and the Line employed this 
time nine years did no more than those who cannonaded the starv- 
ing Lyonnese, or bayoneted the luckless inhabitants of the Rue 
Transnonain : — they did but fulfil the soldier’s honourable duty : — - 
his superiors bid him kill and he killeth : — perhaps, had he gone to 
his work with a little more heart, the result would have been 
different, and then — would the conquering party have been justified 
in annually rejoicing over the conquered? Would we have thought 
Charles X. justified in causing fireworks to be blazed, and concerts 
to be sung, and speeches to be spouted, in commemoration of his 
victory over his slaughtered countrymen? — I wish, for my part, 
they would allow the people to go about their business as on the 
other 362 days of the year, and leave the Champs Elysdes free for 
the omnibuses to run, and the Tuileries in quiet, so that the nurse- 
maids might come as usual, and the newspapers be read for a half- 
penny a piece. 

Shall I trouble you with an account of the speculations of these 
latter, and the state of the parties which they represent? The 


40 


THE PARIS SKETCH BOOK 


complication is not a little curious, and may form, perhaps, a subject 
of graver disquisition. The July fetes occupy, as you may imagine, 
a considerable part of their columns just now, and it is amusing to 
follow them, one by one : to read Tweedledum’s praise, and Tweedle- 
dee’s indignation — to read, in the Debats^ how the King was received 
with shouts and loyal vivats — in the Nation, how not a tongue was 
wagged in his praise, but, on the instant of his departure, how the 
people called for the “Marseillaise” and applauded that . — But best 
say no more about the fete. The Legitimists were always indignant 
at it. The high Philippist party sneers at and despises it j the 
Republicans hate it : it seems a joke against them. Why continue 
it 1 — If there be anything sacred in the name and idea of Royalty, 
why renew this fete ? It only shows how a rightful monarch was 
hurled from his throne, and a dexterous usurper stole his precious 
diadem. If there be anything noble in the memory of a day, when 
citizens, unused to war, rose against practised veterans, and, armed 
with the strength of their cause, overthrew them, why speak of it 
now ? or renew the bitter recollections of the bootless struggle and 
victory ? 0 Lafayette ! 0 hero of two worlds ! 0 accomplished 

Cromwell Grandison ! you have to answer for more than any mortal 
man who has played a part in history : two republics and one 
monarchy does the world owe to you ; and especially grateful should 
your country be to you. Did you not, in ’90, make clear the path 
for honest Robespierre 1 and, in ’30, prepare the way for 


[The editor of the Bungay Beacon would insert no more of 
this letter, which is therefore, for ever lost to the public.] 


ON THE FRENCH SCHOOL OF PAINTING: 

WITH APPROPRIATE ANECDOTES, ILLUSTRATIONS, 
AND PHILOSOPHICAL DISQUISITIONS 

IN A LETTER TO MR. MACGILP, OF LONDON 



HE three collections of pictures at the Louvre, the Luxem- 


Beaux-Arts, contain a number of 


^ specimens of French art, since its commencement almost, and 
give the stranger a pretty fair opportunity to study and appreciate 
the school. The French list of painters contains some very good 
names — no very great ones, except Poussin (unless the admirers of 
Claude choose to rank him among great painters), — and I think the 
school was never in so flourishing a condition as it is at the present 
day. They say there are three thousand artists in this town alone : 
of these, a handsome minority paint not merely tolerably, but well 
understand their business : draw the figure accurately ; sketch with 
cleverness ; and paint portraits, churches, or restaurateurs’ shops, in 
a decent manner. 

To account for a superiority over England — which, I think, as 
regards art, is incontestable — it must be remembered that the 
painter’s trade, in France, is a very good one : better appreciated, 
better understood, and, generally, far better paid than with us. 
There are a dozen excellent schools in which a lad may enter here, 
and, under the eye of a practised master, learn the apprenticeship 
of Ids art at an expense of about ten pounds a year. In England 
there is no school except the Academy, unless the student can afibrd 
to pay a very large sum, and place himself under the tuition of some 
particular artist. Here, a young man, for his ten pounds, has all 
sorts of accessory instruction, models, &;c. ; and has further, and for 
nothing, numberless incitements to study his profession which are 
not to be found in England : — the streets are filled with picture- 
shops, the people themselves are pictures walking about ; the 
churches, theatres, eating-houses, concert-rooms are covered with 
pictures ; Nature herself is inclined more kindly to him, for the sky 


42 


THE PARIS SKETCH BOOK 


is a thousand times more bright and beautiful, and the sun shines 
for the greater part of the year. Add to this incitements more 
selfisli, but quite as powerful : a French artist is paid very hand- 
somely ; for five hundred a year is much where all are poor ; and 
has a rank in society rather above his merits than below them, 
being caressed by hosts and hostesses in places where titles are 
laughed at, and a baron is thought of no more account than a 
banker’s clerk. 

The life of the young artist here is the easiest, merriest, dirtiest 
existence possible. He comes to Paris, probably at sixteen, from 
his province ; his parents settle forty pounds a year on him, and 
pay his master; he establishes himself in the Pays Latin, or in 
the new quarter of Notre Dame de Lorette (which is quite peopled 
with painters) ; he arrives at his atelier at a tolerably early hour, 
and labours among a score of companions as merry and poor as 
himself. Each gentleman has his favourite tobacco-pipe ; and the 
pictures are painted in the midst of a cloud of smoke, and a din 
of puns and choice French slang, and a roar of choruses, of which 
no one can form an idea who has not been present at such an 
assembly. 

You see here every variety of coiffure that has ever been known. 
Some young men of genius have ringlets hanging over their shoidders 
— you may smell the tobacco with which they are scented across the 
street ; some have straight locks, black, oily, and redundant ; some 
have toujyets in the famous Louis-Philippe fashion; some are cropped 
close ; some have adopted the present mode — which he who would 
follow must, in order to do so, part his hair in the middle, grease it 
with grease, and gum it with gum, and iron it flat down over his ears ; 
when arrived at the ears, you take the tongs and make a couple of 
ranges of curls close round the whole head, — such curls as you may 
see under a gilt three-cornered hat, and in her Britannic Majesty’s 
coachman’s state wig. 

This is the last fashion. As for the beards, there is no end 
to them ; all my friends the artists have beards who can raise 
them; and Nature, though she has rather stinted the bodies and 
limbs of the French nation, has been very liberal to them of 
hair. Fancy these heads and beards under all sorts of caps — 
Chinese caps. Mandarin caps, Greek skull-caps, English jockey- 
caps, Russian or Kuzzilbash caps, Middle-Age caps (such as are 
called, in heraldry, caps of maintenance), Spanish nets, and striped 
worsted nightcaps. Fancy all the jackets you have ever seen, and 
you have before you, as well as pen can describe, the costumes of 
these indescribable Frenchmen. 

In this company and costume the French student of art passes 


ON THE FRENCH SCHOOL OF PAINTING 43 

his days and acquires knowledge ; how he passes his evenings, at 
what theatres, at what guinguettes, in company with what seducing 
little milliner, there is no need to say ; but I knew one who had 
pawned his coat to go to a carnival ball, and walked abroad very 
clieerfully in his blouse for six weeks, until he could redeem the 
absent garment. 

These young men (together wdth the students of sciences) com- 
port themselves towards the sober citizen pretty much as the 
German bursch towards the philister, or as the military man, during 
the Empire, did to the ; — from the height of their poverty 

they look down upon him with the greatest imaginable scorn — a 
scorn, I think, by which the citizen seems dazzled, for his respect 
for the arts is intense. The case is very different in England, where 
a grocer’s daughter woidd think she made a mesalliance by marrying 
a painter, and where a literary man (in spite of all we can say 
against it) ranks belows that class of gentry composed of the apothe- 
cary, the attorney, the wine-merchant, whose positions, in country 
towns at least, are so equivocal. As for instance, my friend the 
Rev. James Asterisk, who has an undeniable pedigree, a paternal 
estate, and a living to boot, once dined in Warwickshire, in com- 
pany with several squires and parsons of that enlightened county. 
Asterisk, as usual, made himself extraordinarily agreeable at dinner, 
and delighted all present with his learning and wit. “ Who is that 
monstrous pleasant fellow ? ” said one of the squires. “ Don’t you 
know % ” replied another. “ It’s Asterisk, the author of So-and-so, 
and a famous contributor to such-and-such a magazine.” “ Good 
heavens ! ” said the squire, quite horrified ; “a literary man ! I 
thought he had been a gentleman ! ” 

Another instance : M. Guizot, when he was Minister here, had 
the grand hotel of the Ministry, and gave entertainments to all the 
great de par le monde, as Brantome says, and entertained them in 
a proper ministerial magnificence. The splendid and beautiful 
Duchess of Dash was at one of his ministerial parties; and went, 
a fortnight afterwards, as in duty bound, to pay her respects to M. 
Guizot. But it happened, in this fortnigiit, that M. Guizot w^as 
Minister no longer; having given up his portfolio, and his grand 
hotel, to retire into private life, and to occupy his humble apart- 
ments in the house which he possesses, and of which he lets the 
greater portion. A friend of mine was present at one of the ex- 
Minister’s soirees, where the Duchess of Dash made her appearance. 
He says the Duchess, at her entrance, seemed quite astounded, and 
examined the premises with a most curious wonder. Two or three 
shabby little rooms, with ordinary furniture, and a Minister en 
retraite, who lives by letting lodgings ! In our country was ever 


44 


THE PARIS SKETCH BOOK 


such a thing heard of? No, thank Heaven ! and a Briton ought 
to be proud of the difference. 

But to our muttons. This country is surely the paradise of 
painters and penny-a-liners ; and when one reads of M. Horace 
Vernet at Rome, exceeding ambassadors at Rome by his magnifi- 
cence, and leading such a life as Rubens or Titian did of old ! when 
one sees M. Thiers’s grand villa in the Rue St. George (a dozen 
years ago he was not even a penny-a-liner : no such luck) ; when 
one contemplates, in imagination, M. Gudin, the marine painter, 
too lame to walk through the picture-gallery of the Louvre, accom- 
modated, therefore, with a wheel-chair, a privilege of princes only, 
and accompanied — nay, for what I know, actually trundled — down 
the gallery by Majesty itself — ^who does not long to make one of 
the great nation, exchange his native tongue for the melodious 
jabber of France ; or, at least, adopt it for his native country, like 
Marshal Saxe, Napoleon, and Anacharsis Clootz? Noble people! 
they made Tom Paine a deputy; and as for Tom Macaulay, they 
would make a dynasty of him. 

Well, this being the case, no wonder there are so many painters 
in France ; and here, at least, we are back to them. At the Ecole 
Royale des Beaux- Arts, you see two or three hundred specimens of 
their performances; all the prize-men, since 1750, I think, being 
bound to leave their prize sketch or picture. Can anything good 
come out of the Royal Academy 1 is a question which has been con- 
siderably mooted in England (in the neighbourhood of Suffolk Street 
especially). The hundreds of French samples are, I think, not very 
satisfactory. The subjects are almost all what are called classical : 
Orestes pursued by every variety of Furies : numbers of little wolf- 
sucking Romuluses ; Hectors and Andromaches in a complication of 
parting embraces, and so forth ; for it was the absurd maxim of our 
forefathers, that because these subjects had been the fasliion twenty 
centuries ago, they must remain so in soecula scecidorum ; because 
to these lofty heights giants had scaled, behold the race of pigmies 
must get upon stilts and jump at them likewise 1 and on the canvas, 
and in the theatre, the French frogs (excuse the pleasantry) were 
instructed to swell out and roar as much as possible like bulls. 

What was the consequence, my dear friend ? In trying to make 
themselves into bulls, the frogs made themselves into jackasses, as 
might be expected. For a hundred and ten years the classical 
humbug oppressed the nation ; and you may see, in this gallery of 
the Beaux-Arts, seventy years’ specimens of the dulness which it 
engendered. 

Now, as Nature made every man with a nose and eyes of his 
own, she gave him a character of his own too; and yet we, 0 


ON THE FRENCH SCHOOL OF PAINTING 45 


foolish race ! must try our very best to ape some one or two of our 
neighbours, w'hose ideas fit us no more than their breeches ! It is 
the study of Nature, surely, that profits us, and not of these imita- 
tions of her. A man, as a man, from a dustman up to ^schylus, 
is God’s work, and good to read, as all works of Nature are ; but 
the silly animal is never content ; is ever trying to fit itself into 
another shape ; wants to deny its own identity, and has not the 
courage to utter its own thoughts. Because Lord Byron was 
wicked, and quarrelled with the world ; and found himself growing 
fat, and quarrelled with his victuals, and thus, naturally, grew 
ill-humoured, did not half Europe grow ill-humoured too? Did 
not every poet feel his young affections withered, and despair and 
darkness cast upon his soul? Because certain mighty men of old 
could make heroical statues and plays, must we not be told that 
there is no other beauty but classical beauty? — must not every 
little whipster of a French poet chalk you out plays, “ Henriades,” 
and such-like, and vow that here was the real thing, the undeniable 
Kalon ? 

The undeniable fiddlestick ! For a hundred years, my dear 
sir, the world was humbugged by the so-called classical artists, as 
they now are by what is called the Christian art (of which anon) ; 
and it is curious to look at the pictorial traditions as here handed 
down. The consequence of them is, that scarce one of the classical 
pictures exhibited is worth much more than two-and-sixpence. 
Borrowed from statuary, in the first place, the colour of the paini- 
ings seems, as much as possible, to participate in it : they are 
mostly of a misty, stony-green, dismal hue, as if they had been 
painted in a world where no colour was. In every picture there 
are, of course, white mantles, white mns, white columns, white 
statues — those oblige accompaniments of the sublime. There are 
the endless straight noses, long eyes, round chins, short upper lips, 
just as they are ruled down for you in the drawing-books, as if the 
latter were the revelations of beauty, issued by supreme authority, 
from which there was no aj^peal. Why is the classical reign to 
endure? Why is yonder simpering Venus de’ Medicis to be our 
standard of beauty, or the Greek tragedies to bound our notions of 
the sublime? There was no reason why Agamemnon should set 
the fashions, and remain dva^ dvSpwv to eternity : and there is a 
classical quotation, which you may have occasionally heard, beginning 
Vixere forteSy &c., which, as it avers that there were a great number 
of stout fellows before Agamemnon, may not unreasonably induce 
us to conclude that similar heroes were to succeed him. Shakspeare 
made a better man when his imagination moulded the mighty figure 
of Macbeth. And if you will measure Satan by Prometheus, the 


THE PARIS SKETCH BOOK 


4f) 

blind old Puritan’s work by that of the fiery Grecian poet, does 
not Milton’s angel surpass ^schylus’s — surpass him by “many a 
rood ” 1 

In the same school of the Beaux-Arts, where are to be found 
such a number of pale imitations of the antique, Monsieur Thiers 
(and he ought to be thanked for it) has caused to be placed a 
full-sized copy of “ The Last Judgment ” of Michael Angelo, and 
a number of casts from statues by the same splendid hand. There 
is the sublime, if you please — a new sublime — an original sublime 
— quite as sublime as the Greek sublime. See yonder, in the midst 
of his angels, the Judge of the world descending in glory ; and near 
him, beautiful and gentle, and yet indescribably august and pure, 
the Virgin by his side. There is the “ Moses,” the grandest figure 
that ever was carved in stone. It has about it something frightfully 
majestic, if one may so speak. In examining this, and the astonish- 
ing picture of “ The Judgment,” or even a single figure of it, the 
spectator’s sense amounts almost to pain. I would not like to be 
left in a room alone with the “ Moses.” How did the artist live 
amongst them, and create them'? How did he suffer the painful 
labour of invention '? One fancies that he would have been scorched 
up, like Semele, by sights too tremendous for his vision to bear. 
One cannot imagine him, with our small physical endowments and 
weaknesses, a man like ourselves. 

As for the Ecole Royal des Beaux-Arts, then, and all the good 
its students have done, as students, it is stark naught. When the 
men did anything, it was after they had left the academy, and began 
thinking for themselves. There is only one picture among the many 
hundreds that has, to my idea, much merit (a charming composition 
of Homer singing, signed J ourdy) ; and the only good that the 
academy has done by its pupils was to send them to Rome, where 
they might learn better things. At home, the intolerable stupid 
classicalities, taught by men who, belonging to the least erudite 
country in Europe, were themselves, from their profession, the least 
learned among their countrymen, only weighed the pupils down, and 
cramped their hands, their eyes, and their imaginations ; drove them 
away from natural beauty, which, thank God, is fresh and attainable 
by us all, to-day, and yesterday, and to-morrow ; and sent them 
rambling after artificial grace without the proper means of judging 
or attaining it. 

A word for the building of the Palais des Beaux-Arts. It is 
beautiful, and as well finished and convenient as beautiful. With 
its light and elegant fabric, its pretty fountain, its archway of the 
Renaissance, and fragments of sculpture, you can hardly see, on a 
fine day, a place more riant and pleasing. 


ON THE FRENCH SCHOOL OF PAINTING 47 

Passing from thence up the picturesque Rue de Seine, let us 
walk to the Luxembourg, where bones, students, grisettes, and old 
gentlemen with pigtails, love to wander in the melancholy quaint 
old gardens ; where the Peers have a new and comfortable court of 
justice, to judge all the emeutes which are to take place ; and where, 
as everybody knows, is the picture-gallery of modern French artists 
whom government thinks worthy of patronage. 

A very great proportion of the pictures, as we see by the cata- 
logue, are by the students whose works we have just been to visit 
at the Beaux- Arts, and who, having performed tlieir pilgrimage to 
Rome, have taken rank among the professors of the art. I don’t 
know a more pleasing exhibition ; for there are not a dozen really 
bad pictures in the collection, some very good, and the rest showing 
great skill and smartness of execution. 

In the same way, however, that it has been supposed that no 
man could be a great poet unless he wrote a very big poem, the 
tradition is kept up among the painters, and we have here a vast 
number of large canvases, with figures of the proper heroical length 
and nakedness. The anticlassicists did not arise in France until 
about 1827 ; and in consequence, up to that period, we have here 
the old classical faith in full vigour. There is Brutus, having 
chopped his son’s head off, with all the agony of a father, and then 
calling for number two ; there is JEneas carrying off old Anchises ; 
there are Paris and Venus, as naked as two Hottentots, and many 
more such choice subjects from Lempridre. 

But the chief specimens of the sublime are in the way of 
murders, with which the catalogue swarms. Here are a few 
extracts from it : — 

7. Beaume, Chevalier de la Legion d’Honneur. “ The Grand 
Dauphiness Dying.” 

18. Blondel, Chevalier de la, &c. “Zenobia found Dead.” 

36. Debay, Chevalier. “ The Death of Lucretia.” 

38. Dejuinne. “ The Death of Hector.” 

34. Court, Chevalier de la, &c. “ The Death of Caesar.” 

39, 40, 41. Delacroix, Chevalier. “Dante and Virgil in the 

Infernal Lake,” “ The Massacre of Scio,” and “ Medea 
going to Murder her Children.” 

43. Delaroche, Chevalier. “ Joas taken from among the Dead.” 

44. “ The Death of Queen Elizabeth.” 

45. “ Edward V. and his Brother ” (preparing for death). 

50. Drolling, Chevalier. “ Hecuba going to be Sacrificed.” 

51. Dubois. “ Young Clovis found Dead.” 

56. Henry, Chevalier. “ The Massacre of St. Bartholomew.” . 


48 


THE PARIS SKETCH BOOK 


75. Guerin, Chevalier. “ Cain, after the Death of Abel.” 

83. Jacquand. “ Death of Adelaide de Comminges.” 

88. “ The Death of Eudamidas.” 

93. “ The Death of Hymetto.” 

103. “ The Death of Philip of Austria.’^ 

And so on. 

You see what woeful subjects they take, and how profusely 
they are decorated with knighthood. They are like the Black 
Brunswickers these painters, and ought to be called Chevaliers de 
la Mort. I don’t know why the merriest people in the world 
should please themselves with such grim representations and 
varieties of murder, or why murder itself should be considered 
so eminently sublime and poetical. It is good at the end of a 
tragedy ; but, then, it is good because it is the end, and because, 
by the events foregone, the mind is prepared for it. But these 
men will have nothing but fifth acts; and seem to skip, as un- 
worthy, all the circumstances leading to them. This, however, 
is part of the scheme — the bloated, unnatural, stilted, spouting, 
sham sublime, that our teachers have believed and tried to pass 
off as real, and which your humble servant and other anti-hum- 
buggists should heartily, according to the strength that is in them, 
endeavour to pull down. What, for instance, could Monsieur 
Lafond care about the death of Eudamidas? AVhat was Hecuba 
to Chevalier Drolling, or Chevalier Drolling to Hecuba? I would 
lay a wager that neither of them ever conjugated tutttw, and 
that their school learning carried them not as far as the letter, 
but only to the game of taw. How were they to be inspired 
by such subjects ? From having seen Talma and Mademoiselle 
Georges flaunting in sham Greek costumes, and having read up 
the articles Eudamidas, Hecuba, in the “Mythological Dictionary.” 
What a classicism, inspired by rouge, gas-lamps, and a few lines 
in Lempri^re, and copied, half from ancient statues, and half from 
a naked guardsman at one shilling and sixpence the hour ! 

Delacroix is a man of a very different genius, and his “ Medea ” 
is a genuine creation of a noble fancy. For most of the others, 
Mrs. Brownrigg, and her two female ’prentices, would have done 
as well as the desperate Colchian with her reKva ^lArara. M. 
Delacroix has produced a number of rude, barbarous pictures ; but 
there is the stamp of genius on all of them, — the great poetical 
intention, which is worth all your execution. Delaroche is another 
man of high merit; with not such a great heart, perhaps, as the 
other, but a fine and careful draughtsman, and an excellent arranger 
of his subject. “The Death of Elizabeth” is a raw young per- 


ON THE FRENCH SCHOOL OF PAINTING 49 

formance seemingly — not, at least, to my taste. The “ Enfants 
(TEdouard ” is renowned over Europe, and has appeared in a 
hundred different ways in print. It is properly pathetic and 
gloomy, and merits fully its high reputation. This painter rejoices 
in such subjects — in what Lord Portsmouth used to call “ black 
jobs.” He has killed Charles I. and Lady Jane Grey, and the 
Dukes of Guise, and I don’t know whom besides. He is, at present, 
occupied with a vast work at the Beaux-Arts, where the writer of 
this had the honour of seeing him, — a little keen-looking man, 
some five feet in height. He wore, on this important occasion, 
a bandanna round his head, and was in the act of smoking a cigar. 

Horace Vernet, whose beautiful daughter Delaroche married, is 
the king of French battle-painters — an amazingly rapid and dexterous 
draughtsman, who has Napoleon and all the campaigns by heart, and 
has painted the Grenadier Fran(^ais under all sorts of attitudes. His 
pictures on such subjects are spirited, natural, and excellent; and 
he is so clever a man, that all he does is good to a certain degree. 
His “Judith ” is somewhat violent, perhaps. His “ Rebecca” most 
pleasing ; and not the less so for a little pretty affectation of attitude 
and needless singidarity of costume. “ Raphael and Michael Angelo ” 
is as clever a picture as can be — clever is just the word — the groups 
and drawing excellent, the colouring pleasantly bright and gaudy ; 
and the French students study it incessantly ; there are a dozen who 
copy it for one who copies Delacroix. His little scraps of woodcuts, 
in the now publishing “ Life of Napoleon,” are perfect gems in their 
way, and the noble price paid for them not a penny more than he 
merits. 

The pictime, by Court, of “ The Death of Caesar,” is remarkable 
for effect and excellent workmanship ; and the head of Brutus (who 
looks like Armand Carrel) is full of energy. There are some beautiful 
heads of wmmen, and some very good colour in the picture. Jacquand’s 
“Death of Adelaide de Commings” is neither more nor less than 
beautiful. Adelaide had, it appears, a lover, who betook himself to 
a convent of Trappists. She followed him thither, disguised as a man, 
took the vows, and was not discovered by him till on her deathbed. 
The painter has told this story in a most pleasing and affecting 
manner : the picture is full of onction and melancholy grace. The 
objects, too, are capitally represented ; and the tone and colour very 
good. Decaisne’s “ Guardian Angel ” is not so good in colour, but 
is equally beautiful in expression and grace. A little child and a, 
nurse are asleep : an angel watches the infant. You see women look 
very wistfully at this sweet picture ; and what triumph would a 
painter have more 1 

We must not quit the Luxembourg without noticing the dashing 


50 


THE PARIS SKETCH BOOK 


sea-pieces of Gudin, and one or two landscapes by Giroux (the plain 
of Grasivaudan), and “ The Prometheus ” of Aligny. This is an 
imitation, perhaps; as is a noble picture of “Jesus Christ and the 
Children,” by Flandrin ; but the artists are imitating better models, 
at any rate ; and one begins to perceive that the odious classical 
dynasty is no more. Poussin’s magnificent “ Polyphemus ” (I only 
know a print of that marvellous composition) has, perhaps, suggested 
the first-named picture ; and the latter has been inspired by a good 
enthusiastic study of the Roman schools. 

Of this revolution. Monsieur Ingres has been one of the chief 
instruments. He was, before Horace Vernet, president of the French 
Academy at Rome, and is famous as a chief of a school. When he 
broke up his atelier here, to set out for his presidency, many of his 
pupils attended him faithfully some way on his journey ; and some, 
with scarcely a penny in their pouches, walked through France, and 
across the Alps, in a pious pilgrimage to Rome, being determined not 
to forsake tlieir old master. Such an action was worthy of them, 
and of the high rank which their profession holds in France, where 
the honours to be acquired by art are only inferior to those which 
are gained in war. One reads of such peregrinations in old days, 
when the scholars of some great Italian painter followed him from 
Venice to Rome, or from Florence to Ferrara. In regard of Ingres’s 
individual merit as a painter, the writer of this is not a fair judge, 
having seen but three pictures by him ; one being a plafond in the 
Louvre, which his disciples much admire. 

Ingres stands between the Imperio-Davido-classical school of 
French art, and the namby-pamby mystical German school, which 
is for carrying us back to Cranach and Diirer, and which is making 
progress here. 

For everything here finds imitation ; the French have the genius 
of imitation and caricature. This absurd humbug, called the Chris- 
tian or Catholic art, is sure to tickle our neighbours, and will be a 
favourite with them, when better known. My dear MacGilp, I do 
believe this to be a greater humbug than the humbug of David and 
Girodet, inasmuch as the latter Avas founded on Nature at least ; 
whereas the former is made up of silly affectations and improvements 
upon Nature. Here, for instance, is Chevalier Ziegler’s picture of 
“ St. Luke Painting the Virgin.” St. Luke has a monk’s dress on, 
embroidered, however, smartly round the sleeves. The Virgin sits 
in an immense yelloAV-ochre halo, with her son in her arms. She 
looks preternaturally solemn ; as does St. Luke, who is eyeing his 
paint-brush with an intense ominous mystical look. They call this 
Catholic art. There is nothing, my dear friend, more easy in life. 
First, take your colours, and rub them doAvn clean, — bright carmine, 


ON THE FRENCH SCHOOL OF PAINTING 51 


bright yellow, bright sienna, bright ultramarine, bright green. Make 
the costumes of your figures as much as possible like the costumes of 
the early part of the fifteenth century. Paint them in with the above 
colours ; and if on a gold ground, the more “ Catholic ” your art is. 
Dress your apostles like priests before the altar ; and remember to 
have a good commodity of crosiers, censers, and other such gimcracks, 
as you may see in the Catholic chapels, in Sutton Street and else- 
where. Deal in Virgins, and dress them like a burgomaster’s wife 
by Cranach or Van Eyck. Give them all long twisted tails to their 
gowns, and proper angular draperies. Place all their heads on one 
side, with the eyes shut, and the proper solemn simper. At the 
back of the head, draAv, and gild with gold-leaf, a halo, or glory, of 
the exact shape of a cart-wheel : and you have the thing done. It 
is Catholic art tout crache, as Louis Philii)pe says. We have it 
still in England, handed down to us for four centuries, in the pictures 
on the cards, as the redoubtable king and queen of clubs. Look at 
them ; you will see that the costumes and attitudes are precisely 
similar to those which figure in the catholicities of the school of 
Overbeck and Cornelius. 

Before you take your cane at the door, look for one instant at 
the statue-room. Yonder is Jouffley’s “Jeune Fille confiant son 
premier secret k V^nus.” Charming, charming ! It is from the 
exhibition of this year only ; and, I think, the best sculpture in the 
gallery — pretty, fanciful, naive; admirable in workmanship and 
imitation of nature. I have seldom seen flesh better represented in 
marble. Examine, also, Jaley’s “ Pudeur,” Jacquot’s “ Nymph,” 
and Rude’s “Boy with the Tortoise.” These are not very exalted 
subjects, or what are called exalted, and do not go beyond simple 
smiling beauty and nature. But what then 1 Are we gods, Miltons, 
Michael Angelos, that can leave earth when we please, and soar to 
heiglits immeasurable 1 No, my dear MacGilp ; but the fools of 
academicians would fain make us so. Are you not, and half the 
painters in London, panting for an opportunity to show your genius 
in a great “ historical picture ” % 0 blind race ! Have you wings ? 

Not a feather : and yet you must be ever puffing, sweating up to 
the tops of rugged hills ; and, arrived there, clapping and shaking 
your ragged elbows, and making as if you would fly ! Come down, 
silly Dsedalus : come down to the lowly places in which Nature 
ordered you to walk. The sweet flowers are springing there ; the 
fat muttons are waiting there ; the pleasant sun shines there ; be 
content and humble, and take your share of the good cheer. 

While we have been indulging in this discussion, the omnibus 
has gaily conducted us across the water ; and le garde qui veille a 
la porte du Louvre ne defend our entry. 


52 


THE PARIS SKETCH BOOK 


What a paradise this gallery is for French students, or foreigners 
who sojourn in the capital ! It is hardly necessary to say that the 
brethren of the brush are not usually supplied by Fortune with any 
extraordinary wealth, or means of enjoying the luxuries with which 
Paris, more than any other city, abounds. But here they have a 
luxury which surpasses all others, and spend their days in a palace 
which all the money of all the Rothschilds could not buy. They 
sleep, perhaps, in a garret, and dine in a cellar ; but no grandee in 
Europe has such a drawing-room. Kings’ houses have, at best, but 
damask hangings and gilt cornices. What are these to a wall covered 
with canvas by Paul Veronese, or a hundred yards of Rubens ? 
Artists from England, wdio have a national gallery that resembles a 
moderate-sized gin-shop, who may not copy pictures, except under 
particular restrictions, and on rare and particular days, may revel 
here to their hearts’ content. Here is a room half-a-mile long, with 
as many windows as Aladdin’s palace, open from sunrise till evening, 
and free to all manners and all varieties of study : the only puzzle 
to the student is to select the one he shall begin upon, and keep his 
eyes away from the rest. 

Fontaine’s grand staircase, with its arches, and painted ceilings, 
and shining Doric columns, leads directly to the gallery ; but it is 
thought too fine for working days, and is only opened for tlie public 
entrance on Sabbath. A little back stair (leading from a court, in 
which stand numerous bas reliefs, and a solemn sphinx, of polished 
granite) is the common entry for students and others, who, during 
the week, enter the gallery. 

Hither have lately been transported a number of the works of 
French artists which formerly covered the walls of the Luxembourg 
(death only entitles the French painter to a place in the Louvre ; 
and let us confine ourselves to the Frenchmen only, for the space of 
this letter. 

I have seen, in a fine private collection at St. Germain, one or 
two admirable single figures of David, full of life, truth, and gaiety. 
The colour is not good, but all the rest excellent ; and one of these 
so much-lauded pictures is the portrait of a washerwoman. “ Pope 
Pius,” at the Louvre, is as bad in colour as remarkable for its vigour 
and look of life. The man had a genius for painting portraits and 
common life, but must attempt the heroic — failed signally ; and, 
what is worse, carried a whole nation blundering after him. Had 
you told a Frenchman so twenty years ago, he would have thrown 
the dementi in your teeth ; or, at least, laughed at you in scornful 
incredulity. They say of us that we don’t know when we are 
beaten : they go a step further, and swear their defeats are victories, 
David was a part of the glory of the Empire ; and one might as 


ON THE FRENCH SCHOOL OF PAINTING 53 

well have said then that “ Romulus ” was a bad picture, as that 
Toulouse was a lost battle. Old-fashioned people who believe in 
the Emperor, believe in the Theatre Fran^ais, and believe that Ducis 
improved upon Shakspeare, have the above opinion. Still, it is 
curious to remark, in this place, how art and literature become 
party matters, and political sects have their favourite painters and 
authors. 

Nevertheless, Jacques Louis David is dead. He died about a 
year after his bodily demise in 1825. The romanticism killed him. 
Walter Scott, from his Castle of Abbotsford, sent out a troop of 
gallant young Scotch adventurers, merry outlaws, valiant knights, 
and savage Highlanders, who, with trunk hosen and buff jerkins, 
fierce two-handed swords, and harness on their back, did challenge, 
combat, and overcome the heroes and demigods of Greece and Rome. 
Notre Dame a la, rescousse ! Sir Brian de Bois Guilbert has borne 
Hector of Troy clean out of his saddle. Andromache may weep : 
but her spouse is beyond the reach of physic. See ! Robin Hood 
twangs his bow, and the heathen gods fly, howling. Montjoie 
Saint Denis I down goes Ajax under the mace of Dunois ; and 
yonder are Leonidas and Romulus begging their lives of Rob Roy 
Macgregor. Classicism is dead. Sir John Froissart has taken 
Dr. Lempri^re by the nose, and reigns sovereign. 

Of the great pictures of David the defunct, we need not, then, 
say much. Romulus is a mighty fine young fellow, no doubt ; and 
if he has come out to battle stark naked (except a very handsome 
helmet), it is because the costume became him, and shows off his 
figure to advantage. But was there ever anything so absurd as this 
passion for the nude, which was followed by all the painters of the 
Davidian epoch ? And how are we to suppose yonder straddle to 
be the true characteristic of the heroic and the sublime 1 Romulus 
stretches his legs as far as ever nature will allow ; the Horatii, in 
receiving their swords, think proper to stretch their legs too, and to 
thrust forward their arms, thus — 

ROMULUS. THE HORATII. 

Romulus’s is the exact action of a telegraph ; and the Horatii are 
all in the position of the lunge. Is this the sublime? Mr. Angelo, 
of Bond Street, might admire the attitude ; his namesake, Michael, 
I don’t think would. 


54 . 


THE PARIS SKETCH BOOK 


The little picture of “ Paris and Helen,” one of the master’s 
earliest, I believe, is likewise one of his best ; the details are 
exquisitely painted. Helen looks needlessly sheepish, and Paris 
has a most odious ogle ; but the limbs of the male figure are beauti- 
fully designed, and have not the green tone which you see in the 
later pictures of the master. What is the meaning of this green 1 
Was it the fashion, or the varnish ? Girodet’s pictures are green ; 
Gros’s emperors and grenadiers have universally the jaundice. 
Gerard’s “ Psyche ” has a most decided green-sickness ; and I am 
at a loss, I confess, to account for the enthusiasm which this per- 
formance inspired on its first appearance before the public. 

In the same room with it is Girodet’s ghastly “ Deluge,” and 
G^ricault’s dismal “Medusa.” Gdricault died, they say, for want 
of fame. He was a man who possessed a considerable fortune of 
his own ; but pined because no one in his day would purchase his 
pictures, and so acknowledge his talent. At present, a scrawl from 
his pencil brings an enormous price. All his works have a grand 
cachet : he never did anything mean. When he painted the “ Raft 
of the Medusa,” it is said he lived for a long time among the corpses 
which he painted, and that his studio was a second Morgue. If 
you have not seen the picture, you are familiar, probably, with 
Reynolds’s admirable engraving of it. A huge black sea; a raft 
beating upon it ; a horrid company of men dead, half-dead, writhing 
and frantic with hideous hunger or hideous hope ; and, far away, 
black, against a stormy sunset, a sail. The story is powerfully told, 
and has a legitimate tragic interest, so to speak, — deeper, because 
more natural, than Girodet’s green “Deluge,” for instance: or his 
livid “ Orestes,” or red-hot “ Clytemnestra.” 

Seen from a distance the latter’s “Deluge” has a certain awe- 
inspiring air with it. A slimy green man stands on a green rock, 
and clutches hold of a tree. On the green man’s shoulders is his 
old father, in a green old age ; to him hangs his wife, with a babe 
on her breast, and dangling at her hair, another child. In the 
water floats a corpse (a beautiful head) ; and a green sea and 
atmosphere envelops all this dismal group. The old father is 
represented with a bag of money in his hand ; and the tree, which 
the man catches, is cracking, and just on the point of giving way. 
These two points were considered very fine by the critics ; they are 
two such ghastly epigrams as continually disfigure French Tragedy. 
For this reason I have never been able to read Racine with pleasure, 
— the dialogue is so crammed with these lugubrious good things — 
melancholy antitheses — sparkling undertakers’ wit; but this is 
heresy, and had better be spoken discreetly. 

The gallery contains a vast number of Poussin’s pictures ; they 


ON THE FRENCH SCHOOL OF PAINTING 55 

put me in mind of the colour of objects in dreams, — a strange hazy- 
lurid hue. How noble are some of his landscapes ! What a depth 
of solemn shadow is in yonder wood, near which, by the side of a 
black water, halts Diogenes. The air is thunder-laden, and breathes 
heavily. You hear ominous whispers in the vast forest gloom. 

Near it is a landscape, by Carel Dujardin, I believe, conceived 
in quite a different mood, but exquisitely poetical too. A horseman 
is riding up a hill, and giving money to a blowsy beggar wench. 
0 matutini rores aurceque salubres ! in what a wonderful way has 
the artist managed to create you out of a few bladders of paint and 
pots of varnish ! You can see the matutinal dews twinkling in the 
grass, and feel the fresh salubrious airs (“ the breath of Nature 
blowing free,” as the Corn-law man sings) blowing free over the 
heath ; silvery vapours are rising up from the blue lowlands. You 
can tell the hour of the morning and the time of the year : you can 
do anything but describe it in words. As with regard to the 
Poussin above mentioned, one can never pass it without bearing 
away a certain pleasing dreamy feeling of awe and musing; the 
other landscape inspires the spectator infallibly with the most 
delightful briskness and cheerfulness of spirit. Herein lies the vast 
privilege of the landscape-painter : he does not address you wdth one 
fixed particidar subject or expression, but with a thousand never 
contemplated by himself, and which only arise out of occasion. 
You may always be looking at a natural landscape as at a fine 
pictorial imitation of one ; it seems eternally producing new thoughts 
in your bosom, as it does fresh beauties from its own. I cannot 
fancy more delightful, cheerful, silent companions for a man than 
half-a-dozen landscapes hung round his study. Portraits, on the 
contrary, and large pieces of figures, have a painful, fixed, staring 
look, which must jar upon the mind in many of its moods. Fancy 
living in a room with David’s sans-culotte Leonidas staring perpetu- 
ally in your face ! 

There is a little Watteau here, and a rare piece of fantastical 
brightness and gaiety it is. What a delightful affectation about 
yonder ladies flirting their fans, and trailing about in their long 
brocades ! What splendid dandies are those, ever smirking, turning 
out their toes, with broad blue ribands to tie up their crooks and 
their pigtails, and wonderful gorgeous crimson satin breeches ! 
Yonder, in the midst of a golden atmosphere, rises a bevy of little 
round Cupids, bubbling up in clusters as out of a champagne-bottle, 
and melting away in air. There is, to be sure, a hidden analogy 
between liquors and pictures ; the eye is deliciously tickled by these 
frisky Watteaus, and yields itself up to a light, smiling, gentleman- 
like intoxication. Thus, were we inclined to pursue further this 


56 


THE PARIS SKETCH BOOK 


mighty subject, yonder landscape of Claude, — calm, fresh, delicate, 
yet full of flavour, — should be likened to a bottle of Chateau Mar- 
gaux' And what is the Poussin before spoken of but Romance 
GeMe 'i — heavy, sluggish, — the luscious odour almost sickens you ; 
a sultry sort of drink ; your limbs sink under it ; you feel as if 
you had been drinking hot blood. 

An ordinary man would be whirled away in a fever, or would 
hobble off this mortal stage, in a premature gout-fit, if lie too early 
or too often indulged in such tremendous drink. I think in my 
heart I am fonder of pretty third-rate pictures than of your great 
thundering first-rates. Confess how many times you have read 
Bdranger, and how many Milton ! If you go to the “ Star and 
Garter,” don’t you grow sick of that vast luscious landscape, and 
long for tlie sight of a couple of cows, or a donkey, and a few yards 
of common? Donkeys, my dear MacGilp, since w^e have come to 
this subject, say not so : Richmond Hill for them. Milton they 
never grow tired of; and are as familiar with Raphael as Bottom 
with exquisite Titania. Let us thank Heaven, my dear sir, for 
according to us the power to taste and appreciate the pleasures of 
mediocrity. I have never heard that we were great geniuses. 
Earthy are we, and of the earth ; glimpses of the sublime are but 
rare to us ; leave we them to great geniuses, and to the donkeys ; 
and if it nothing profit us aerias tentdsse domos along with them, 
let us thankfully remain below, being merry and humble. 

I have now only to mention the charming “ Cruche Cassde ” 
of Greuze, which all the young ladies delight to copy ; and of whi(;h 
the colour (a thought too blue, perhaps) is marvellously graceful 
and delicate. There are three more pictures by the artist, contain- 
ing exquisite female heads and colour ; but they have charms for 
French critics which are difficult to be discovered by English eyes ; 
and the pictures seem weak to me. A very fine picture by Bon 
Bollongue, “ Saint Benedict Resuscitating a Child,” deserves parti- 
cular attention, and is superb in vigour and richness of colour. You 
must look, too, at the large, noble, melancholy landscapes of Philippe 
de Champagne ; and the two magnificent Italian pictures of Leopold 
Robert : they are, perhaps, the very finest pictures that the French 
school has produced, — as deep as Poussin, of a better colour, and of 
a wonderful minuteness and veracity in the representation of objects. 

Every one of Lesueur’s church-pictures is worth examining and 
admiring; they are full of “unction” and pious mystical grace. 
“Saint Scholastica” is divine; and the “Taking down from the 
Cross” as noble a composition as ever was seen; I care not by 
whom the other may be. There is more beauty, and less affecta- 
tion, about this picture than you will find in the performances of 


ON THE FRENCH SCHOOL OF PAINTING 57 


many Italian masters, with high-soimding names (out with it, and 
say Raphael at once). I hate those simpering Madonnas. I 
declare that the “ Jardiniere ” is a puking smirking miss, with 
nothing heavenly about her. I vow that the “ Saint Elizabeth ” is 
a bad picture, — a bad composition, badly drawn, badly coloured, in 
a bad imitation of Titian, — a piece of vile affectation. I say, that 
wdien Raphael painted this picture two years before his death, the 
spirit of painting had gone from out of him ; he was no longer in- 
spired ; it ivas time that he should die ! ! 

There, — the murder is out ! My paper is filled to the brim, 
and there is no time to speak of Lesueur’s “ Crucifixion,” which 
is odiously coloured, to be sure ; but earnest, tender, simple, holy. 
But such things are most difficult to translate into words; — one 
lays down the pen, and thinks and thinks. The figures appear, 
and take their places one by one : ranging themselves according 
to order, in light or in gloom, the colours are reflected duly in the 
little camera obscura of the brain, and the whole picture lies there 
complete; but can you describe it? No, not if pens were fitch- 
brushes, and words were bladders of paint. With which for the 
present, adieu. — Your faithful M. A. T. 


To Mr. Robert MacGilp, Newman Street, London. 


THE PAINTERS BARGAIN 


IMON GAMBOUGE was the son of Solomon Gambouge; and, 



as all the world knows, both father and son were astonish- 


ingly clever fellows at their profession. Solomon painted 
landscapes, which nobody bought ; and Simon took a higher line, 
and painted portraits to admiration, only nobody came to sit to him. 

As he was not gaining five pounds a year by his profession, 
and had arrived at the age of twenty, at least, Simon determined 
to better himself by taking a wife, — a plan which a number of 
other wise men adopt, in similar years and circumstances. So 
Simon prevailed upon a butcher’s daughter (to whom he owed 
considerably for cutlets) to quit the meat-shop and follow him. 
Griskinissa — such was the fair creature’s name — “ was as lovely a 
bit of mutton,” her father said, “as ever a man would wish to stick 
a knife into.” She had sat to the painter for all sorts of characters ; 
and the curious who possess any of Gambouge’s pictures will see 
her as Venus, Minerva, Madonna, and in numberless other char- 
acters : Portrait of a Lady — Griskinissa ; Sleeping Nymph — Gris- 
kinissa, without a rag of clothes, lying in a forest; Maternal 
Solicitude — ^Griskinissa again, with young Master Gambouge, who 
was by this time the offspring of their affections. 

The lady brought the painter a handsome little fortune of a 
couple of hundred pounds ; and as long as this sum lasted no 
woman could be more lovely or loving. But want began speedily 
to attack their little household; bakers’ bills were unpaid; rent 
was due, and the relentless landlord gave no quarter; and, to 
crown the whole, her father, unnatural butcher ! suddenly stopped 
the supplies of mutton-chops ; and swore that his daughter, and 
the dauber her husband, should have no more of his wares. At 
first they embraced tenderly, and, kissing and crying over their 
little infant, vowed to Heaven that they would do without : but 
in the course of the evening Griskinissa grew peckish, and poor 
Simon pawned his best coat. ' 

When this habit of pawning is discovered, it appears to the 
poor a kind of Eldorado. Gambouge and his wife were so delighted. 


THE PAINTER’S BARGAIN 


59 

tliat they, in the course of a month, made away with her gold 
chain, her great warming-pan, his best crimson plush inexpressibles, 
two wigs, a washhand basin and ewer, fire-irons, window-curtains, 
crockery, and arm-chairs. Griskinissa said, smiling, that she had 
found a second father in her uncle ^ — a base pun, which showed 
that her mind was corrupted, and that she was no longer the tender 
simple Griskinissa of other days. 

I am sorry to say that she had taken to drinking : she swallowed 
the warming-pan in the course of three days, and fuddled herself 
one whole evening with the crimson plush breeches. 

Drinking is the devil — the father, that is to say, of all vices. 
Griskinissa’s face and her mind grew ugly together; her good- 
Immoirr changed to bilious bitter discontent ; her pretty fond 
epithets, to foul abuse and swearing; her tender blue eyes grew 
watery and blear, and the peach colour on her cheeks fled from its 
old habitation, and crowded up into her nose, where, with a number 
of pimples, it stuck fast. Add to this a dirty draggle-tailed chintz ; 
long matted hair, wandering into her eyes, and over her lean 
shoulders, which were once so snowy, and you have the picture of 
drunkenness and Mrs. Simon Gambouge. 

Poor Simon, who had been a gay lively fellow enough in the 
days of his better fortune, was completely cast down by his present 
ill luck, and cowed by the ferocity of his wife. From morning till 
night the neighbours could hear this woman’s tongue, and under- 
stand her doings ; bellows w'ent skimming across the room, chairs 
were flumped down on the floor, and poor Gambouge’s oil and 
varnish pots went clattering through the windows, or down the 
stairs. The baby roared all day ; and Simon sat pale and idle in 
a corner, taking a small sup at the brandy-bottle, when Mrs. Gam- 
bouge was out of the way. 

One day, as he sat disconsolately at his easel, furbishing up a 
picture of his wife, in the character of Peace, which he had com- 
menced a year before, he was more than ordinarily desperate, and 
cursed and swore in the most pathetic manner. “ 0 miserable fate 
of genius ! ” cried he, “ was I, a man of such commanding talents, 
born for this — to be bullied by a fiend of a wife ; to have my 
masterpieces neglected by the world, or sold only for a few pieces ? 
Cursed be the love which has misled me ; cursed be the art which 
is unworthy of me ! Let me dig or steal, let me sell myself as a 
soldier, or sell myself to the Devil, I should not be more wretched 
than I am now ! ” 

“ Quite the contrary,” cried a small cheery voice. 

“ What ! ” exclaimed Gambouge, trembling and surprised. 
“Who’s there? — where are you?— who are you?” 


6o 


THE PARIS SKETCH BOOK 


“You were just speaking of me,” said the voice. 

Gambouge held, in his left hand, his palette ; in his right, a 
bladder of crimson lake, which he was about to squeeze out upon 
the mahogany. “Where are youT’ cried he again. 

“ S-q-u-e-e-z-e ! ” exclaimed the little voice. 

Gambouge picked out the nail from the bladder, and gave a 
squeeze; when, as sure as I am living, a little imp spurted out 
from the hole upon the palette, and began laughing in the most 
singular and oily manner. 

When first born he was little bigger than a tadpole ; then he 
grew to be as big as a mouse ; then he arrived at the size of a cat ; 
and then he jumped off the palette, and, turning head over heels, 
asked the poor painter what he wanted with him. 


The strange little animal twisted head over heels, and fixed 
himself at last upon the top of Gambouge’s easel, — smearing out, 
with his heels, all the white and vermilion which had just been laid 
on the allegoric portrait of Mrs. Gambouge. 

“ What ! ” exclaimed Simon, “is it the ” 

“ Exactly so ; talk of me, you know, and I am always at hand : 
besides, I am not half so black as I am painted, as you will see 
when you know me a little better.” 

“Upon my word,” said the painter, “it is a very singular 
surprise which you have given me. To tell truth, I did not even 
believe in your existence.” 

The little imp put on a theatrical air, and, with one of Mr. 
Macready’s best looks, said — 

“ There are more things in heaven and earth, Gambogio, 

Than are dreamed of in your philosophy.” 

Gambouge, being a Frenchman, did not understand the quota- 
tion, but felt somehow strangely and singularly interested in the 
conversation of his new friend. 

Diabolus continued: “You are a man of merit, and want money: 
you will starve on your merit ; you can only get money from me. 
Come, my friend, how much is it'? I ask the easiest interest in the 
world : old Mordecai, the usurer, has made you pay twice as heavily 
before now : nothing but the signature of a bond, which is a mere 
ceremony, and the transfer of an article which, in itself, is a sup- 
position, — a valueless, windy, uncertain property of yours, called, 
by some poet of your own, I think, an animula vagulci^ blandula 
— bah ! there is no use beating about the bush — I mean a soul. 
Come, let me have it : you know you will sell it some other way. 


THE PAINTER’S BARGAIN 


61 


and not get such good pay for your bargain ! ” — and, having made 
this speech, the Devil pulled out from his fob a sheet as big as a 
double TimeSj only there was a different stamp in the corner. 

It is useless and tedious to describe law documents : lawyers 
only love to read them ; and they have as good in Chitty as any 
that are to be found in the Devil’s own ; so nobly have the appren- 
tices emulated the skill of the master. Suffice it to say, that poor 
Gambouge read over the paper, and signed it. He was to have 
all he wished for seven years, and at the end of that time was to 

become the property of the ; that, during the course 

of the seven years, every single wish which he might form should 
be gratified by the other of the contracting parties ; otherwise the 
deed became null and non-avenue, and Gambouge should be left 
“to go to the his own way.” 

“You will never see me again,” said Diabolus, in shaking hands 
with poor Simon, on whose fingers he left such a mark as is to be 
seen at this day — “ never, at least, unless you want me ; for every- 
thing you ask will be performed in the most quiet and every-day 
manner ; believe me, it is best and most gentlemanlike, and avoids 
anything like scandal. But if you set me about anything which is 
extraordinary, and out of the course of nature, as it were, come I 
must, you know ; and of this you are the best judge.” So saying, 
Diabolus disappeared; but whether up the chimney, through the 
keyhole, or by any other aperture or contrivance, nobody knows. 
Simon Gambouge was left in a fever of delight, as. Heaven forgive 
me ! I believe many a worthy man would be, if he were allowed an 
opportunity to make a similar bargain. 

“ Heigho ! ” said Simon. “ I wonder whether this be a reality 
or a dream. I am sober, I know ; for who will give me credit for 
the means to be drunk'? and as for sleeping, I’m too hmigry for 
that. I wish I could see a capon and a bottle of white wine.” 

“ Monsieur Simon ! ” cried a voice on the landing-place. 

“ C’est ici,” quoth Gambouge, hastening to open the door. He 
did so ; and lo ! there was a restaurateur's boy at the door, 
supporting a tray, a tin-covered dish, and plates on the same ; and, 
by its side, a tall amber-coloured flask of sauterne. 

“ I am the new boy, sir,” exclaimed this youth, on entering ; 
“but I believe this is the right door, and you asked for these 
things.” 

Simon grinned, and said, “Certainly, I did ask for these 
things.” But such was the effect which his interview with the 
demon had had on his innocent mind, that he took them, although 
he knew that they were for old Simon, the Jew dandy, who was 
mad after an opera girl, and lived on the floor beneath. 


62 


THE PARIS SKETCH BOOK 


“ Go, my boy,” he said ; “ it is good : call in a couple of hours, 
and remove the plates and glasses.” 

The little waiter trotted down-stairs, and Simon sat greedily 
down to discuss the capon and the white wine. He bolted the 
legs, he devoured the wings, he cut every morsel of fl«sh fi*om the 
breast; — seasoning his repast with pleasant draughts of wine, and 
caring nothing for the inevitable bill, which was to follow all. 

“Ye gods ! ” said he, as he scraped away at the backbone, 
“ what a dinner ! what wine ! — and how gaily served up too ! ” 
There were silver forks and spoons, and the remnants of the fowl 
were upon a silver dish. “ Wliy, the money for this dish and these 
spoons,” cried Simon, “would keep me and Mrs. G. for a month! 
I WISH ” — and here Simon whistled, and turned round to see that 
nobody was peeping — “ I wish the plate were mine.” 

Oh, the horrid progress of the Devil! “Here they are,” 
thought Simon to himself ; “ why should not I take them ? ” And 
take them he did. “Detection,” said he, “is not so bad as starva- 
tion ; and I would as soon live at the galleys as live with Madame 
Gambouge.” 

So Gambouge shovelled dish and spoons into the flap of his 
surtout, and ran down-stairs as if the Devil were behind him — as, 
indeed, he was. 

He immediately made for the house of his old friend the pawn- 
broker — that establishment which is called in France the Mont de 
Pi^tA “I am obliged to come to you again, my old friend,” said 
Simon, “with some family plate, of which I beseech you to take 
care.” 

The pawnbroker smiled as he examined the goods. “I can 
give you nothing upon them,” said he. 

“ What ! ” cried Simon ; “ not even the worth of the silver ? ” 

“No; I could buy them at that price at the ‘ Cafd Morisot,’ 
Rue de la Verrerie, where, I suppose, you got them a little cheaper.” 
And, so saying, he showed to the guilt-stricken Gambouge how the 
name of that coffee-house was inscribed upon every one of the 
articles which he had wished to pawn. 

The effects of conscience are dreadful indeed. Oh ! how fearful 
is retribution, how deep is despair, how bitter is remorse for crime 
• — when crime is found out ! — otherwise, conscience takes matters 
much more easily. Gambouge cursed his fate, and ^s wore henceforth 
to be virtuous. 

“ But, hark ye, my friend,” continued the honest broker, “ there 
is no reason why, because I cannot lend upon these things, I should 
not buy them : they will do to melt, if for no other purpose. Will 
you have half the money 1 — speak, or I peach.” 


THE PAIls'TER’S BARGAIN 


•63 


Simon’s resolves about virtue were dissipated instantaneously. 

“ Give me half,” he said, “ and let me go. — What scoundrels are 
these pawnbrokers ! ” ejaculated he, as he passed out of the accursed 
shop, “seeking every wicked pretext to rob the poor man of his 
hard-won gain.” 

When he had marched forwards for a street or two, Gambouge 
counted the money which he had received, and found that he was 
in possession of no less than a hundred francs. It was night as he 
reckoned out his equivocal gains, and he counted them at the light 
of a lamp. He looked up at the lamp, in doubt as to the course he 
should next pursue : upon it was inscribed the simple number, 152. 

“ A gambling-house,” thought Gambouge. “ I wish I had half the 
money that is now on the table upstairs.” 

He mounted, as many a rogue has done before him, and found 
half a hundred persons busy at a table of rouge et noir. Gambouge’s 
five napoleons looked insignificant by the side of tlie heaps which 
were around him ; but the effects of the wine, of the theft, and of 
the detection by the pawnbroker, were upon him, and he threw 
down his capital stoutly upon the 0 0. 

It is a dangerous spot that 0 0, or double zero ; but to Simon 
it was more lucky than to the rest of the world. The ball went 
spinning round — in “ its predestined circle rolled,” as Shelley has it, 
after Goethe — and plumped down at last in the double zero. One 
hundred and thirty-five gold napoleons (louis they were then) were 
counted out to the delighted painter. “ Oh, Diabolus ! ” cried he, 

“ now it is that I begin to believe in thee ! Don’t talk about merit,” 
he cried ; “ talk about fortune. Tell me not about heroes for the 
future — tell me of zeroes. And down went twenty napoleons more 
upon the 0. 

The Devil was certainly in the ball : round it twirled, and 
dropped into zero as naturally as a duck pops its head into a pond. 
Our friend received five hundred pounds for his stake ; and the 
croupiers and lookers-on began to stare at him. 

There were twelve thousand pounds on the table. Suffice it to 
say, that Simon won half, and retired from the Palais Royal with a 
thick bundle of bank-notes crammed into his dirty three-cornered 
hat. He had been but half-an-hour in the place, and he had won 
the revenues of a prince for half a year ! 

Gambouge, as soon as he felt that he was a capitalist, and that • 
he had a stake in the country, discovered that he was an altered 
man. He repented of his foul deed, and his base purloining of the 
restaurateur’s plate. “ 0 honesty ! ” he cried, “ how unworthy is 
an action like this of a man who has a property like mine ! ” So 
he went back to the pawnbroker with the gloomiest face imaginable. 


64 


THE PARIS SKETCH BOOK 


“ My friend,” said he, “ I have sinned against all that I hold most 
sacred : I have forgotten my family and my religion. Here is thy 
money. In the name of Heaven, restore me the plate which I have 
wrongfully sold thee ! ” 

But the pawnbroker grinned, and said, “ Nay, Mr. Gambouge, 

I will sell that plate for a thousand francs to you, or I never will 
sell it at all.” 

“ Well,” said Gambouge, “ thou art an inexorable ruffian, Trois- 
boules ; but I will give thee all I am worth.” And here he pro- 
duced a billet of five hundred francs. “ Look,” said he, “ this money 
is all I o^vn ; it is the payment of two years’ lodging. To raise it, 

I have toiled for many months ; and, fiiiling, I have been a criminal. 
0 Heaven ! I stole that plate that I might pay my debt, and keep 
my dear wife from wandering houseless. But I cannot bear this 
load of ignominy — I cannot suffer the thought of this crime. I will 
go to the person to whom I did wrong. I will starve, I will confess : 
but I will, I will do right ! ” 

The broker was alarmed. “ Give me thy note,” he cried ; “ here 
is the plate.” 

“ Give me an acquittal first,” cried Simon, almost broken- 
hearted ; “sign me a paper, and the money is yours.” So Trois-‘ 
boules wrote according to Gambouge’s dictation : “ Received, for 
thirteen ounces of plate, twenty pounds.” 

“ Monster of iniquity ! ” cried the painter, “ fiend of wickedness ! 
thou art caught in thine own snares. Hast thou not sold me five 
pounds’ worth of plate for twenty '? Have I it not in my pocket 1 
Art thou not a convicted dealer in stolen goods ? Yield, scoundrel, 
yield thy money, or I will bring thee to justice ! ” 

The frightened pawnbroker bullied and battled for a while; 
but he gave up his money at last, and the dispute ended. Thus 
it will be seen that Diabolus had rather a hard bargain in the wily 
Gambouge. He had taken a victim prisoner, but he had assuredly 
caught a tartar. Simon now returned home, and, to do him justice, 
paid the bill for his dinner, and restored the plate. 

And now I maj'' add (and the reader should ponder upon this, 
as a profound picture of human life), that Gambouge, since he had 
grown rich, grew likewise abundantly moral. He was a most 
* exemplary father. He fed the poor, and was loved by them. He 
scorned a base action. And I have no doubt that Mr. Thurtell, or 
the late lamented Mr. Greenacre, in similar circumstances, would 
have acted like the worthy Simon Gambouge. 

There was but one blot upon his cliaracter — he iiated Mrs. Gam. 
worse than ever. As he grew more benevolent, she grew more 


THE PAINTER’S BARGAIN 


65 


virulent : when he went to plays, she went to Bible societies, and 
vice versd : in fact, she led him such a life as Xantippe led Socrates, 
or as a dog leads a cat in the same kitchen. With all his fortune 
— for, as may be supposed, Simon prospered in all worldly things — 
he was the most miserable dog in the whole city of Paris. Only on 
the point of drinking did he and Mrs. Simon agree : and for many 
years, and during a considerable number of hours in each day, he 
thus dissipated, partially, his domestic chagrin. 0 philosophy ! we 
may talk of thee : but, except at the bottom of the wine-cup, where 
thou liest like truth in a well, where shall we find thee 1 

He lived so long, and in his worldly matters prospered so much, 
there was so little sign of devilment in the accomplishment of his 
wishes, and the increase of his prosperity, that Simon, at the end 
of six years, began to doubt whether he had made any such bargain 
at all, as that which we have described at the commencement of this 
history. He had grown, as we said, very pious and moral. He 
went regularly to mass, and had a confessor into the bargain. He 
resolved, therefore, to consult that reverend gentleman, and to lay 
before him the whole matter. 

“I am inclined to think, holy sir,” said Gambouge, after he had 
concluded his history, and shown how, in some miraculous way, all 
his desires were accomplished, “ that, after all, this demon w^as no 
other than the creation of my own brain, heated by the effects of 
that bottle of wine, the cause of my crime and my prosperity.” 

The confessor agreed with him, and they walked out of church 
comfortably together, and entered afterwards a cafe, where they sat 
down to refresh themselves after the fatigues of their devotion. 

A respectable old gentleman, with a number of orders at his 
button-hole, presently entered the room, and sauntered up to the 
marble table, before which reposed Simon and his clerical friend. 
“ Excuse me, gentlemen,” he said, as he took a place opposite them, 
and began reading the papers of the day. 

“ Bah ! ” said he, at last, — “ sont-ils grands ces journaux 
Anglais? Look, sir,” he said, handing over an immense sheet of 
the Times to Mr. Gambouge, “ was ever anything so monstrous ? ” 

Gambouge smiled politely, and examined the proffered page. 
“ It is enormous,” he said ; “ but I do not read English.” 

“ Nay,” said the man with the orders, “ look closer at it. Signor 
Gambouge; it is astonishing how easy the language is.” 

Wondering, Simon took the sheet of paper. He turned pale 
as he looked at it, and began to curse the ices and the waiter. 
“ Come, Mr. I’Abb^,” he said ; “ the heat and glare of this place 
are intolerable.” 

5 E 


66 


THE PARIS SKETCH BOOK 


The stranger rose with them. “ Au plaisir de voiis revoir, moil . 
cher monsieur,” said he ; “I do not mind speaking before the Abb^ 
here, who will be my very good friend one of these days ; but I 
thought it necessary to refresh your memory, concerning our little 
business transaction six years since ; and could not exactly talk of 
it at churchy as you may fancy.” 

Simon Gambouge had seen, in the double-sheeted Times, the 
paper signed by himself, which the little Devil had pulled out of 
his fob. 

There was no doubt on the subject ; and Simon, who had but 
a year to live, grew more pious, and more careful than ever. He 
had consultations with all the doctors of the Sorbonne and all the 
lawyers of the Palais. But his magnificence grew as wearisome to 
him as his poverty had been before ; and not one of the doctors 
whom he consulted could give him a pennyworth of consolation. 

Then he grew outrageous in his demands upon the Devil, and 
put him to all sorts of absurd and ridicailous tasks ; but they were 
all punctually performed, until Simon could invent no new ones, and 
the Devil sat all day with his hands in his pockets doing nothing. 

One day, Simon’s confessor came bounding into the room, with 
the greatest glee. “ My friend,” said he, “ I have it ! Eureka ! — 

I have found it. Send the Pope a hundred thousand crowns, build 
a new Jesuit College at Rome, give a hundred gold candlesticks to 
St. Peter’s ; and tell his Holiness you will double all, if he will give 
you absolution ! ” 

Gambouge caught at the notion, and hurried off a courier to 
Rome ventre a terre. His Holiness agreed to the request of the 
petition, and sent him an absolution, written out with his own fist, 
and all in due form. 

“Now,” said he, “foul fiend, I defy you ! arise, Diabolus ! your 
contract is not worth a jot : the Pope has absolved me, and I am 
safe on the road to salvation.” In a ‘fervour of gratitude he clasped 
the hand of his confessor, and embraced him : tears of joy ran down 
the cheeks of these good men. 

They heard an inordinate roar of laughter, and there was 
Diabolus sitting opposite to them, holding his sides, and lashing 
his tail about, as if he would have gone mad with glee. 

“ Why,” said he, “ what nonsense is this ! do you suppose I care 
about that ? ” and he tossed the Pope’s missive into a corner. “ M. 
I’Abbd knows,” he said, bowing and grinning, “that though the 
Pope’s paper may pass current here, it is not worth twopence in our 
country. What do I care about the Pope’s absolution ? You might 
just as well be absolved by your under-butler.” 




A PUZZLE FOR THE DEVIL 




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THE PAINTER’S BARGAIN 67 

“ Egad,” said the Abbd, “ the rogue is right — I quite forgot the 
fact, which he points out clearly enough.” 

“No, no, Gambouge,” continued Diabolus, with horrid familiarity, 
“go thy ways, old fellow, that cock wonH fight . And he retired 
up the chimney, chuckling at his wit and his triumph. Gambouge 
heard his tail scuttling all the way up, as if he had been a sweeper 
by profession. 

Simon was left in that condition of grief in which, according to 
the newspapers, cities and nations are found when a murder is com- 
mitted, or a lord ill of the gout — a situation, we say, more easy to 
imagine than to describe. 

To add to his woes, Mrs. Gambouge, who was now first made 
acquainted with his compac^t, and its probable consequences, raised 
such a storm about his ears, as made him wish almost that his seven 
years were expired. She screamed, she scolded, she swore, she wept, 
she went into such fits of hysterics, that poor Gambouge, who had 
completely knocked under to her, was worn out of his life. He was 
allowed no rest, night or day : he moped about his fine house, solitary 
and wretched, and cursed his stars that lie ever had married the 
butcher’s daughter. 

It wanted six months of the time. 

A sudden and desperate resolution seemed all at once to have 
taken possession of Simon Gambouge. He called his family and 
his friends together — he gave one of the greatest feasts that ever 
was known in the city of Paris — he gaily presided at one end of 
his table, wliile Mrs. Gam., splendidly arrayed, gave herself airs at 
the otlier extremity. 

After dinner, using the customary formula, he called upon 
Diabolus to appear. The old ladies screamed, and lioped he would 
not appear naked ; the young ones tittered, and longed to see the 
monster ; everybody was pale with expectation and affright. 

A very quiet gentlemanly man, neatly dressed in black, made 
his appearance, to the surprise of all present, and bowed all round 
to the company. “I will not show my creclentialsfi he said, 
blushing, and pointing to his hoofs, which were cleverly hidden by 
his pumps and shoe-buckles, “ unless the ladies absolutely wish it ; 
but I am the person you want, Mr. Gambouge ; pray tell me what 
is your will.” 

“ You know,” said that gentleman, in a stately and determined 
voice, “ that you are bound to me, according to our agreement, 
for six months to come ? ” 

“ I am,” replied the new-comer. 

“You are to do all that I ask, whatsoever it may be, or you 
forfeit the bond which I gave you 1 ” 


68 


THE PARIS SKETCH BOOK 


“It is true.” 

“You declare this before the present company?” 

“Upon my honour, as a gentleman,” said Diabolus, bowing, 
and laying his hand upon his waistcoat. 

A whisper of applause ran round the room ; all were charmed 
with the bland manners of the fascinating stranger. 

“My love,” continued Gambouge, mildly addressing his lady, 
“ will you be so polite as to step this way ? You know I must go 
soon, and I am anxious, before this noble company, to make a 
provision for one who, in sickness as in health, in poverty as in 
riches, has been my truest and fondest companion.” 

Gambouge mopped his eyes with his handkerchief — all the 
company did likewise. Diabolus sobbed audibly, and Mrs. Gam- 
bouge sidled up to her husband’s side, and took him tenderly by 
the hand. “ Simon ! ” said she, “is it true ? and do you really 
love your Griskinissa ? ” 

Simon continued solemnly : “ Come hither, Diabolus ; you are 
bound to obey me in all things for the six months during wdiich 
our contract has . to run ; take, then, Griskinissa Gambouge, live 
alone with her for half a year, never leave her from morning till 
night, obey all her caprices, follow all her whims, and listen to all 
the abuse which falls from her infernal tongue. Do this, and I 
ask no more of you; I will deliver myself up at the appointed 
time.” 

Not Lord G when flogged by Lord B in the House, — 

not Mr. Cartlitch, of Astley’s Amphitheatre, in his most pathetic 
passages, could look more crestfallen, and howl more hideously, 
than Diabolus did now. “ Take another year, Gambouge,” 
screamed he ; “ two more — ^ten more — a century ; roast me on 
Lawrence’s gridiron, boil me in holy water, but don’t ask that : 
don’t, don’t bid me live with Mrs. Gambouge ! ” 

Simon smiled sternly. “ I have said it,” he cried ; “ do this, 
or our contract is at an end.” 

The Devil, at this, grinned so horribly that every drop of beer 
in the house timned sour ; he gnashed his teeth so frightfully that 
every person in the company well-nigh fainted with the colic. He 
slapped down the great parchment upon the floor, trampled upon 
it madly, and lashed it with his hoofs and his tail : at last, spread- 
ing out a mighty pair of wings as wide as from here to Regent 
Street, he slapped Gambouge with his tail over one eye, and 
vanished, abruptly, through the keyhole. 

Gambouge screamed with pain and started up. “ You drunken 
lazy scoundrel ! ” cried a shrill and well-known voice, “ you have 


THE PAINTER’S BARGAIN 69 

been asleep these two hours : ” and here he received another terrific 
box on the ear. 

It was too true, he had fallen asleep at his work ; and the 
beautiful vision had been dispelled by the thumps of the tipsy 
Griskinissa. Nothing remained to corroborate his story, except the 
bladder of lake, and this was spurted all over his waistcoat and 
breeches. 

“ I wish,” said the poor fellow, rubbing his tingling cheeks, 
“ that dreams were true ; ” and he went to work again at his 
portrait. 

My last accounts of Gambouge are, that he has left the arts, 
and is footman in a small family. Mrs. Gam. takes in washing ; 
and it is said that her continual dealings with soap-suds and hot 
water have been the only things in life which have kept her from 
spontaneous combustion. 


CARTOUCHE 


1 HAVE been much interested with an account of the exploits 
of Monsieur Louis Dominic Cartouche, and as Newgate and 
the highways are so much the fashion with us in England, we 
may be allowed to look abroad for histories of a similar tendency. 
It is pleasant to find that virtue is cosmopolite, and may exist 
among wooden-shoed Papists as well as honest Church-of-England 
men. 

Louis Dominic was born in a quarter of Paris called the 
Courtille, says the historian wliose work lies before me ; — born in 
the Courtille, and in the year 1693. . Another biographer asserts 
that he was born two years later, and in the Marais ; — of respectable 
parents, of course. Think of the talent that our two countries pro- 
duced about this time ; Marlborough, Villars, Mandrin, Turpin, 
Boileau, Dryden, Swift, Addison, Molihre, Racine, Jack Sheppard, 
and Louis Cartouche, — all famous within the same twenty years, 
and fighting, writing, robbing a Venvi I 

Well, Marlborough was no chicken when he began to show his 
genius ; Swift was but a dull idle college lad ; but if we read the 
histories of some other great men mentioned in the above list — I 
mean the thieves, especially — we shall find that they all commenced 
very early : they showed a passion for their art, as little Raphael 
did, or little Mozart; and the history of Cartouche’s knaveries 
begins almost with his breeches. 

Dominic’s parents sent him to school at the college of Clermont 
(now Louis-le-Grand) ; and although it has never been discovered 
that the Jesuits, who directed that seminary, advanced him much 
in classical or theological knowledge. Cartouche, in revenge, showed, 
by repeated instances, his own natural bent and genius, which no 
difficulties were strong enough to overcome. His first great action 
on record, although not successful in the end, and tinctured Avith 
the innocence of youth, is yet highly creditable to him. He made 
a general swoop of a hundred and twenty nightcaps belonging to 
his companions, and dis})osed of them to his satisfaction ; but as it 
Avas discovered that of all the youths in the college of Clermont, he 


CARTOUCHE 


71 


only was the possessor of a cap to sleep in, suspicion (which, alas ! 
was confirmed) immediately fell upon him : and by this little piece 
of youthful naivete^ a scheme, prettily conceived and smartly per- 
formed, was rendered naught. 

Cartouche had a wonderful love for good eating, and put all the 
apple-women and cooks, who came to supply the students, under 
contribution. Not always, however, desirous of robbing these, he 
used to deal with them, occasionally, on honest principles of barter ; 
that is, whenever he could get hold of his schoolfellows’ knives, 
books, rulers, or playthings, which he used fairly to exchange for 
tarts and gingerbread. 

It seemed as if the presiding genius of evil was determined to 
patronise this young man ; for before he had been long at college, 
and soon after he had, with the greatest difficulty, escaped from the 
nightcap scrape, an opportunity occurred by which he was enabled 
to gratify both his propensities at once, and not only to steal, but 
to steal sweetmeats. It happened that the principal of the college 
received some pots of Narbonne honey, which came under the eyes 
of Cartouche, and in which that young gentleman, as soon as ever 
he saw them, determined to put his fingers. The president of the 
college put aside his honey-pots in an apartment within his own ; 
to which, except by the one door which led into the room which 
his reverence usually occupied, there was no outlet. There was no 
chimney in the room ; and the windows looked into the court, where 
there was a porter at night, and where crowds passed by day. 
What was Cartouche to do % — have the honey he must. 

Over this chamber, which contained what his soul longed after, 
and over the president’s rooms, there ran a set of unoccupied garrets, 
into which the dexterous Cartouche penetrated. These were divided 
from the rooms below, according to the fashion of those days, by a 
set of large beams, which reached across the whole building, and 
across which rude planks were laid, Avhich formed the ceiling of the 
lower storey and the floor of the upper. Some of these planks did 
young Cartouche remove ; and having descended by means of a rope, 
tied a couple of others to the neck of the honey-pots, climbed back 
again, and drew up his prey in safety. He then cunningly fixed 
the planks again in their old places, and retired to gorge himself 
upon his booty. And, now, see the punishment of avarice ! Every- 
body knows that the brethren of the order of Jesus are bound by a 
vow to have no more than a certain small sum of money in their 
possession. The principal of the college of Clermont had amassed 
a larger sum, in defiance of this rule : and where do you think the 
old gentleman had hidden it 'I In the honey-pots ! As Cartouche 
dug his spoon into one of them, he brought out, besides a quantity 


72 


THE PARIS SKETCH BOOK 


of golden honey, a conple of golden lonis, which, with ninety-eight 
more of their fellows, were comfortably hidden in the pots. Little 
Dominic, who, before, had cut rather a poor figure among his fellow- 
students, now aj^peared in as fine clothes as any of them could boast 
of ; and when asked by his parents, on going home, how he came by 
them, said that a young nobleman of his schoolfellows had taken 
a violent fancy to him, and made him a present of a couple of his 
suits. Cartouche the elder, good man, went to thank the young 
nobleman ; but none such could be found, and young Cartouche 
disdained to give any explanation of his manner of gaining the 
money. 

Here, again, we have to regret and remark the inadvertence of 
youth. Cartouche lost a hundred louis — for what? For a pot of 
honey not worth a couple of shillings. Had he fished out the 
pieces, and replaced the pots and the honey, he might have been 
safe, and a respectable citizen all his life after. The principal would 
not have dared to confess the loss of his money, and did not, openly ; 
but he vowed vengeance against the stealer of his sweetmeat, and a 
rigid search was made. Cartouche, as usual, was fixed upon ; and 
in the tick of his bed, lo ! there were found a couple of empty 
honey-pots ! From this scrape there is no knowing how he would 
have escaped, had not the president himself been a little anxious to 
hush the matter up ; and accordingly, young Cartouche was made 
to disgorge the residue of his ill-gotten gold pieces, old Cartouche 
made up the deficiency, and his son was allowed to remain un- 
punished — until the next time. 

This, you may fancy, was not very long in coming ; and though 
history has not made us acquainted with the exact crime which 
Louis Dominic next committed, it must have been a serious one ; for 
Cartouche, who had borne philosophically all the whippings and 
punishments which were administered to inm at college, did not dare 
to face that one which his indignant father had in pickle for him. 
As he was coming home from school, on the first day after his crime, 
when he received permission to go abroad, one of his brothers, who 
was on the look-out for him, met him at a short distance from home, 
and told him what was in preparation ; which so frightened this 
young thief, that he declined returning home altogether, and set out 
upon the wide world to shift for himself as he could. 

Undoubted as his genius was, he had not arrived at the full 
exercise of it, and his gains were by no means equal to his appetite. 
In whatever professions he tried, — wliether he joined the gipsies, 
which he did, — whether he picked pockets on the Pont Neuf, which 
occupation history attributes to him, — poor Cartouche was always 
hungry. Hungry and ragged, lie wandered from one place and pro- 


CARTOUCHE 73 

fession to another, and regretted the honey-pots at Clermont, and 
the comfortable soup and houilli at home. 

Cartouche had an uncle, a kind man, who was a merchant, and 
had dealings' at Rouen. One day, walking on the quays of that city, 
this gentleman saw a very miserable, dirty, starving lad, who had 
just made a pounce upon some bones and turnip-peelings, that had 
been flung out on the quay, and was eating them as greedily as if 
they had been turkeys and truffles. The worthy man examined the 
lad a little closer. 0 heavens ! it was their runaway prodigal— it 
was little Louis Dominic ! The merchant was touched by his case ; 
and forgetting the nightcaps, the honey-pots, and the rags and dirt 
of little Louis, took him to his arms, and kissed and hugged him 
with the tenderest affection. Louis kissed and hugged too, and 
blubbered a gi'eat deal : he was very repentant, as a man often is 
when he is hungry ; and he went home with his uncle, and his peace 
was made ; and his mother got him new clothes, and filled his belly, 
and for a wdiile Louis was as good a son as might be. 

But why attempt to balk the progress of genius '? Louis’s was 
not to be kept down. He was sixteen years of age by this time — 
a smart lively young fellow, and, what is more, desperately enamoured 
of a lovely washerwoman. To be successful in your love, as Louis 
knew, you must have something more than mere flames and senti- 
ment ; — a washer, or any other woman, cannot live upon sighs only ; 
but must have new gowns and caps, and a necklace every now and 
then, and a few handkerchiefs and silk stockings, and a treat into the 
country or to the play. Now, how are all these things to be had 
without money ? Cartouche saw at once that it was impossible ; and 
as his father would give him none, he was obliged to look for it else- 
where. He took to his old courses, and lifted a purse here, and a 
watch there ; and found, moreover, an accommodating gentleman, 
who took the wares off his hands. 

This gentleman introduced him into a very select and agreeable 
society, in which Cartouche’s merit began speedily to be recognised, 
and in which he learnt how pleasant it is in life to have friends to 
assist one, and how much may be done by a proper division of labour. 
M. Cartouche, in fact, formed part of a regular company or gang of 
gentlemen, who were associated together for the purpose of making 
war on the public; and the law. 

Cartouche had a lovely young sister, who was to be married to 
a rich young gentleman from the provinces. As is tlie fashion in 
France, the parents had arranged the match among themselves ; and 
the young people had never met until just before tlie time appointed 
for the marriage, when the bridegroom came up to Paris witli his 
title-deeds, and settlements, and money. Now there can hardly be 


74 


THE PARIS SKETCH BOOK 


found in history a finer instance of devotion than Cartouche now 
exhibited. He went to his captain, explained tlie matter to him, 
and actually, for the good of his country, as it were (the thieves 
might be called his country), sacrificed his sister’s husband’s property. 
Informations were taken, the house of the bridegroom was recon- 
noitred, and, one night. Cartouche, in company with some chosen 
friends, made his first visit to the house of his brother-in-law. All 
the people were gone to bed ; and, doubtless, for fear of disturbing 
the porter. Cartouche and his companions spared him the trouble of 
opening the door, by ascending quietly at the window. They arrived 
at the room where the bridegroom kept his great chest, and set in- 
dustriously to work, filing and picking the locks which defended the 
treasure. 

The bridegroom slept in the next room ; but however tenderly 
Cartouche and his workmen handled their tools, from fear of disturb- 
ing his slumbers, their benevolent design was disappointed, for 
awaken him they did ; and quietly slipping out of bed, he came to 
a place where he had a complete view of all that was going on. 
He did not cry out, or frighten himself sillily ; but, on the contrary, 
contented himself with watching the countenances of the robbers, 
so that he might recognise them on another occasion ; and, though 
an avaricious man, he did not feel the slightest anxiety about his 
money-chest ; for the fact is, he had removed all the cash and 
Ijapers the day before. 

As soon, however, as they had broken all the locks, and found 
the nothing which lay at the bottom of the chest, he shouted with 
such a loud voice, “ Here, Thomas ! — John !— officer ! — keep the 
gate, fire at the rascals ! ” that they, incontinently taking fright, 
skipped nimbly out of window, and left the house free. 

Cartouche, after this, did not care to meet his brother-in-law, 
but eschewed all those occasions on which the latter was to be 
present at his father’s house. The evening before the marriage 
came ; and then his father insisted upon his appearance among the 
other relatives of the bride’s and the bridegroom’s families, who 
were all to assemble and make merry. Cartouche was obliged to 
yield ; and brought with him one or two of his companions, who 
had been, by the way, present in the affair of the empty money- 
boxes ; and though he never fancied that there was any danger in 
meeting his brother-in-law, for he had no idea that he had been 
seen on the night of the attack, with a natural modesty, which did 
him really credit, he kept out of the young bridegroom’s sight as 
much as he could, and showed no desire to be presented to him. 
At supper, however, as he was sneaking modestly down to a side- 
table, his father shouted after him, “ Ho, Dominic, come hither, and 


CARTOUCHE 


75 


sit opposite to your brother-in-law : ” which Dominic did, his friends 
following. The bridegroom pledged him very gracefully in a bumper ; 
and was in the act of making him a pretty speech, on the honour 
of an alliance with such a family, and on the pleasures of brother- 
in-la wship in general, when, looking in his face — ye gods ! he saw 
the very man who had been filing at his money-chest a few nights 
ago ! By his side, too, sat a couple more of the gang. The poor 
fellow turned deadly pale and sick, and, setting his glass down, ran 
quickly out of the room, for he thought he was in company of a whole 
gang of robbers. And when he got home, he wrote a letter to the 
elder Cartouche, humbly declining any connection with his family. 

Cartouche the elder, of course, angrily asked the reason of such an 
abrupt dissolution of the engagement ; and then, much to his horror, 
heard of his eldest son’s doings. “You would not have me marry 
into such a family ? ” said the ex-bridegroom. And old Cartouche, 
an honest old citizen, confessed, with a heavy heart, that he would not. 
What was he to do with the lad 1 He did not like to ask for a 
letty'e de cachet, and shut him up in the Bastile. He determined 
to give him a year’s discipline at the monastery at St. Lazare. 

But how to catch the young gentleman 1 Old Cartouche knew 
that, were he to tell his son of the scheme, the latter would never 
obey, and, therefore, he determined to be very cunning. He told 
Dominic that he was about to make a heavy bargain with the 
fathers, and should require a witness ; so they stepped into a carriage 
together, and drove unsuspectingly to the Rue St. Denis. But, 
when they arrived near the convent. Cartouche saw several ominous 
figures gathering round the coach, and felt that his doom was sealed. 
However, he made as if he knew nothing of the conspiracy ; and 
the carriage drew up, and his father descended, and, bidding him 
wait for a minute in the coach, promised to return to him. 
Cartouche looked out; on the other side of the way half-a-dozen 
men were posted, evidently with the intention of arresting him. 

Cartouche now performed a great and celebrated stroke of genius, 
which, if he had not been professionally employed in the morning, 
he never could have executed. He had in his pocket a piece of 
linen, which he had laid hold of at the door of some shop, and from 
which he quickly tore three suitable stripes. One he tied round 
his head, after the fashion of a nightcap ; a second round his waist, 
like an apron ; and with the third he covered his hat, a round one, 
with a large brim. His coat and his periwig he left behind him in 
the carriage ; and when he stepped out from it (which he did with- 
out asking the coachman to let down the steps), he bore exactly the 
appearance of a cook’s boy carrying a dish ; and with this he slipped 
through the exempts quite unsuspected, and bade adieu to the 


76 


THE PARIS SKETCH BOOK 


Lazarists and his honest father, who came out speedily to seek him, 
and was not a little annoyed to find only his coat and wig. 

With that coat and wig. Cartouche left home, father, friends, 
conscience, remorse, society, behind him. He discovered (like a 
great number of other philosophers and poets, when they have com- 
mitted rascally actions) that the world was all going wrong, and he 
quarrelled with it outright. One of the first stories told of the 
illustrious Cartouche, when he became professionally and openly a 
robber, redounds highly to his credit, and shows that he knew how 
to take advantage of the occasion, and how much he had improved 
in the course of a very few years’ experience. His courage and 
ingenuity were vastly admired by his friends ; so much so, that, 
one day, the captain of the band thought fit to compliment him, 
and vowed that when he (the captain) died. Cartouche should 
infallibly be- called to the command-in-chief. This conversation, so 
flattering to Cartouche, was carried on between the two gentlemen, 
as they were walking, one night, on the quays by the side of the 
Seine. Cartouche, when the captain made the last remark, 
blushingly protested against it, and pleaded his extreme youth as 
a reason why his comrades could never put entire trust in him. 
“ Psha, man I ” said the captain, “ thy youth is in thy favour ; 
thou wilt live only the longer to lead thy troops to victory. As 
for strength, bravery, and cunning, wert thou as old as Methuselah, 
thou couldst not be better provided than thou art now, at eighteen.” 
What was the reply of Monsieur Cartouche 1 He answered, not by 
words, but by actions. Drawing his knife from his girdle, he 
instantly dug it into the captain’s left side, as near his heart as 
possible : and then, seizing that imprudent commander, precipitated 
him violently into the waters of the Seine, to keep company with 
the gudgeons and river gods. When he returned to the band, and 
recounted how the captain had basely attempted to assassinate him, 
and how he, on the contrary, had, by exertion of superior skill, 
overcome the captain, not one of the society believed a word of his 
history ; but they elected him captain forthwith. I think his 
Excellency Don Rafael Maroto, the pacificator of Spain, is an 
amiable character, for whom history has not been written in vain. 

Being arrived at this exalted position, there is no end of the 
feats which Cartouche performed ; and his band reached to such a 
pitch of glory, that if there had been a hundred thousand, instead of 
a hundred of them, who knows but that a new and popular dynasty 
might not have been founded, and “ Louis Dominic, premier 
Empereur des Eran^ais,” might have performed innumerable glorious 
actions, and fixed himself in the hearts of his people, just as other 
monarchs have done, a hundred years after Cartouche’s death. 


CARTOUCHE 


77 


A story similar to tlie above, and equally moral, is that of 
Cartouche, who, in company \yith two other gentlemen, robbed 
the cocAe, or packet-boat, from Melun, where they took a good 
quantity of booty, — making the passengers lie down on the decks, 
and rifling them at leisure. “ This money will be but very little 
among three,” whispered Cartouche to his neighbour, as the three 
conquerors were making merry over their gains; “if you were but 
to pull the trigger of your pistol in the neighbourhood of your 
comrade’s ear, perhaps it might go off, and then there would be but 
two of us to share.” Strangely enough, as Cartouche said, the 
pistol did go off,, and No. 3 perished. “Give liim another ball,” 
said Cartouche ; and another was fired into him. But no sooner 
had Cartouche’s comrade discharged both his pistols, than Cartouche 
himself, seized with a furious indignation, drew his : “ Learn, 
monster,” cried he, “not to be so greedy of gold, and perish, the 
victim of thy disloyalty and avarice ! ” So Cartouche slew the 
second robber ; and there is no man in Europe who can say that 
the latter did not merit well his punishment. 

I could fill volumes, and not mere sheets of paper, with tales 
of the triumphs of Cartouche and his band : how he robbed the 

Countess of 0 , going to Dijon, in her coach, and how the 

Countess fell in love with him, and was faithful to him ever after ; 
how, when the lieutenant of police offered a reward of a hundred 
pistoles to any man who would bring Cartouche before him, a noble 
Marquess, in a coach and six, drove up to the hotel of the police ; 
and the noble Marquess, desiring to see Monsieur de la Reynie, on 
matters of the highest moment, alone, the latter introduced him into 
his private cabinet ; and how, when there, the Marquess drew from 
his pocket a long, curiously shaped dagger : “ Look at this. Monsieur 
de la Reynie,” said he ; “ this dagger is poisoned ! ” 

“ Is it possible h ” said M. de la Reynie. 

“ A prick of it would do for any man,” said the Marquess. 

“ You don’t say so ! ” said M. de la Reynie. 

“I do, though ; and, what is more,” says the Marquess, in a 
terrible voice, “ if you do not instantly lay yourself flat on the ground, 
with your face towards it, and your hands crossed over your back, or 
if you make the slightest noise or cry, I will stick this poisoned 
dagger between your ribs, as sure as my name is Cartouche ! ” 

At the sound of this dreadful name, M. de la Reynie sunk in- 
continently down on his stomach, and submitted to be carefully 
gagged and corded ; after which Monsieur Cartouche laid his hands 
upon all the money which was kept in the lieutenant’s cabinet. 
Alas ! and alas ! many a stout bailiff, and many an honest fellow of 
a spy, went, for that day, without his pay and his victuals. 


78 


THE PARIS SKETCH BOOK 


There is a story tliat Cartouche once took the diligence to Lille, 
and found in it a certain Abbd Potter, wlio was full of indignation 
against this monster of a Cartouclie, and said that when he went 
back to Paris, which he proposed to do in about a fortnight, he 
should give the lieutenant of police some information, which would 
infallibly lead to the scoundrel’s capture. But poor Potter was 
disappointed in his designs ; for, before he could fulfil them, he was 
made the victim of Cartouche’s cruelty. 

A letter came to the lieutenant of police, to state that Cartouche 
had travelled to Lille, in company with the Abbd de Potter, of that 
town ; that, on the reverend gentleman’s return towards Paris, 
Cartouche had waylaid him, murdered him, taken his papers, and 
would come to Paris himself, bearing the name and clothes of the 
unfortunate Abb^, by the Lille coach, on such a day. The 
Lille coach arrived, was surrounded by police agents ; the monster 
Cartouche was there, sure enough, in the Abbd’s guise. He was 
seized, bound, flung into prison, brought out to be examined, and, 
on examination, found to be no other than the Abbd Potter himself ! 
It is pleasant to read thus of the relaxations of great men, and find 
them condescending to joke like tlie meanest of us. 

Another diligence adventure is recounted of the famous Cartouche. 
It happened that he met, in the coach, a young and lovely lady, 
clad in widow’s weeds, and bound to Paris, witli a couple of servants. 
The poor thing was the widow of a rich old gentleman of Marseilles, 
and was going to the capital to arrange with her lawyers, and to 
settle her husband’s will. The Count de Grinche (for so her fellow- 
passenger was called) was quite as candid as the pretty widow had 
been, and stated that he was a captain in the regiment of Nivernois ; 
that he was going to Paris to buy a colonelcy, which his relatives, 
the Duke de Bouillon, the Prince de Montmorency, the Commandeur 
de la Tr^moille, with all tlieir interest at Court, could not fail to 
procure for him. To be short, in the course of the four days’ 
journey, the Count Louis Dominic de Grinche played his cards so 
well, that the poor little widow half forgot her late husband ; and 
her eyes glistened with tears as the Count kissed her hand at 
parting — at parting, he hoped, only for a few hours. 

Day and night the insinuating Count followed her; and when, 
at the end of a fortnight, and in the midst of a tete-a-tete^ he 
plunged, one morning, suddenly on his knees, and said, “ Leonora, 
do you love me ? ” the poor thing heaved the gentlest, tenderest, 
sweetest sigh in the world ; and, sinking her blushing head on his 
shoulder, Avhispered, “ Oh, Dominic, je t’aime ! Ah ! ” said she, 
“ how noble is it of my Dominic to take me with the little I have, 
and he so rich a nobleman ! ” The fact is, the old Baron’s titles 



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CARTOUCHE 


79 

and estates had passed away to his nephews ; his dowager was only 
left with three hundred thousand livres, in renter, sur Vetat~2^ 
handsome sum, but nothing to compare to the rent-roll of Count 
Dominic, Count de la Grinche, Seigneur de la Haute Pigre, Baron 
de la Bigorne ; he had estates and wealth which might authorise 
him to aspire to the hand of a duchess, at least. 

The unfortunate widow never for a moment suspected the cruel 
trick that was about to be played on her ; and, at the request of 
her alRanced husband, sold out her money, and realised it in gold, 
to be made over to him on the day when the contract was to be 
signed. The day arrived ; and, according to the custom in France, 
the relations of both parties attended. The widow’s relatives, 
though respectable, were not of the first nobility, being chiefly 
persons of the finance or the robe : there was the President of the 
Court of Arras, and his lady ; a farmer-general ; a judge of a court 
of Paris ; and other such grave and respectable people. As for 
Monsieur le Comte de la Grinche, he was not bound for names ; 
and, having the whole peerage to choose from, brought a host of 
Montmorencies, Crdquis, De la Tours, and Guises at his back. 
His homnie dfifi'aires brought his papers in a sack, and displayed 
the plans of his estates, and the titles of his glorious ancestry. 
The widow’s lawyers had her money in sacks ; and between the 
gold on the one side, and the parchments on the other, lay the 
contract which was to make the widow’s three hundred thousand 
francs the property of the Count de Grinche. The Count de la 
Grinche was just about to sign ; when the Marshal de Villars, 
stepping up to him, said, “ Captain, do you know who the President 
of the Court of Arras, yonder, is? It is old Manasseh, the fence, 
of Brussels. I pawned a gold watch to him, which I stole from 
Cadogan, when I was with Malbrook’s army in Flanders.” 

Here the Due de la Roche Guyon came forward, very much 
alarmed. “ Run me through the body ! ” said his Grace, “ but the 
Comptroller-general’s lady, there, is no other than that old hag of 

a Margoton who keeps the ” Here the Due de la Roche 

Guy on’s voice fell. 

Cartouche smiled graciously, and walked up to the table. He 
took up one of the widow’s fifteen thousand gold pieces ; — it was 
as pretty a bit of copper as you could wish to see. “ My dear,” 
said he politely, “ there is some mistake here, and this business 
had better stop.” 

“ Count ! ” gasped the poor widow. 

“ Count be hanged ! ” answered the bridegroom sternly ; “ my 
name is Cartouche ! ” 


ON SOME FRENCH FASHIONABLE NOVELS: 


WITH A PLEA FOR ROMANCES IN GENERAL 

HERE is an old story of a Spanish Court-painter, who, being 



pressed for money, and having received a piece of damask. 


^ which he was to wear in a State procession, pawned the 
damask, and appeared, at the show, dressed out in some very fine 
sheets of paper, which he had painted so as exactly to resemble 
silk. Nay, his coat looked so much richer than the doublets of all 
the rest, that the Emperor Charles, in whose honour the procession 
was given, remarked the painter, and so his deceit was found out. 

I have often thought that, in respect of sham and real histories, 
a similar fact may be noticed; the sham story appearing a great 
deal more agreeable, life-like, and natural than the true one : and 
all who, from laziness as well as principle, are inclined to follow 
the easy and comfortable study of novels, may console themselves 
with the notion that they are studying matters quite as important 
as history, and that their favourite duodecimos are as instructive 
as the biggest quartos in the world. 

If then, ladies, the bigwigs begin to sneer at the course of 
our studies, calling our darling romances foolish, trivial, noxious 
to the mind, enervators of intellect, fathers of idleness, and what 
not, let us at once take a high ground, and say, — Co you to your 
own employments, and to such dull studies as you fancy ; go and bob 
for triangles, from the Pons Asinorum ; go enjoy your dull black- 
draughts of metaphysics ; go fumble over history books, and dissert 
upon Herodotus and Livy ; our histories are, perhaps, as true as 
yours ; our drink is the brisk sparkling champagne drink, from 
the presses of Colburn, Bentley, & Co. ; our walks are over such 
sunshiny pleasure-grounds as Scott and Shakspeare have laid out 
for us ; and if our dwellings are castles in the air, we find them 
excessively splendid and commodious ; — be not you envious because 
you have no wings to fly thither. Let the bigwigs despise us ; 
such contempt of their neighbours is the custom of all barbarous 
tribes ; witness, the learned Chinese : Tippoo Sultaun declared that 


SOME FRENCH FASHIONABLE NOVELS 81 


there were not in all Europe ten thousand men : the Sclavonic hordes, 
it is said, so entitled themselves from a word in their jargon which 
signifies “ to speak ” ; the ruftians imagining that they had a mono- 
poly of this agreeable faculty, and that all other nations were dumb. 

Not so : others may be deaf ; but the novelist has a loud, 
eloquent, instructive language, though his enemies may despise or 
deny it ever so much. What is more, one could, perhaps, meet 
the stoutest historian on his own ground, and argue with him ; 
showing that sham histories were much truer than real histories ; 
which are, in fact, mere contenii)tihle catalogues of names and places, 
that can have no moral effect upon the reader. 

As thus ; — 

Julius Caesar beat Pompey, at Pharsalia. 

The Duke of Marlborough beat Marshal Tallard, at Blenheim. 

The Constable of Bourbon beat Francis the First, at Pavia. 

And what have we here h — so many names, simply. Suppose Phar- 
salia had been, at that mysterious period when names were given, 
called Pavia ; and that Julius Caesar’s family name had been John 
Churchill ; — the fact would have stood, in history, thus : — 

“ Pompey ran away from the Duke of Marlborough at Pavia.” 

And why not 1 — we should have been just as wise. Or it might 
be stated, that — 

“ The tenth legion charged the French infantry at Blenheim ; 
and Caesar, writing home to his mamma, said, ‘ Madame, tout est 
perdu fors riionneur.’ ” 

What a contemptible science this is, then, about which quartos 
are written, and sixty-volumed Biographies Universelles, and Lard- 
ner’s Cabinet Cyclopaedias, and tlie like ! the facts are nothing in 
it, the names everything ; and a gentleman might as well improve 
liis mind by learning Walker’s “ Gazetteer,” or getting by heart a 
fifty-years-old edition of the “ Court Guide.” 

Having thus disposed of the historians, let us come to the point 
in question — the novelists. 


On the title-page of these volumes the reader has, doubtless, 
remarked, that among the pieces introduced, some are announced 
as “copies” and “compositions.” Many of the histories have, 


82 


THE PARIS SKETCH BOOK 


accordingl)^, been neatly stolen from the collections of French 
authors (and mutilated, according to the old saying, so that their 
owners should not know tliem) ; and, for compositions, Ave intend 
to favour the public with some studies of French modern works, 
that have not as yet, we believe, attracted the notice of the 
English public. 

Of such works there appear many hundreds yearly, as may be 
seen by the French catalogues ; but the writer has not so much 
to do Avith Avorks political, philosoi)hical, historical, metaphysical, 
scientifical, theological, as with those for which he has been putting 
forward a plea — novels, namely ; on Avhich he has expended a great 
deal of time and study. And passing from novels in general to 
French novels, let us confess, Avith much humiliation, that Ave 
borrow from these stories a great deal more knoAvledge of French 
society than from our OAvn personal observation we ever can hope 
to gain : for, let a gentleman AAdio has dAvelt tAA^o, four, or ten years 
in Paris (and has not gone thither for the purpose of making a 
book, Avhen three weeks are sufficient) — let an English gentleman 
say, at the end of any given period, how much he knows of French 
society, hoAv many French houses he has entered^, and hoAv many 
French friends he has madel — He has enjoyed, at the end of the 
year, say — 

At the English Ambassador’s, so many soirees. 

At houses to which he has brought letters, so many tea-parties. 

At Caffis, so many dinners. 

At French private houses, say three dinners, and very lucky too. 

He has, we say, seen an immense number of wax candles, cups 
of tea, glasses of orgeat, and French people, in best clothes, enjoying 
the same ; but intimacy there is none ; Ave see but the outsides of 
the people. Year by year we live in France, and grow grey, and 
see no more. We play dearth with Monsieur de Trifle every night ; 
but what know Ave of the heart of the man — of the iiiAvard AA^ays, 
thoughts, and customs of Trifle 1 If Ave have good legs, and love 
the amusement, Ave dance Avith Countess Flicflac, Tuesdays and 
Thursdays, ever since the Peace : and how far are we advanced 
in acquaintance Avith her since we first twirled her round a room 1 
We know her velvet goAvn, and her diamonds (about three-fourths 
of them are sham, by the way) ; we know her smiles, and her 
simpers, and her rouge — but no more : she may turn into a kitclien 
Avench at tAvelve on Thursday night, for aught Ave knoAv; her 
voiture, a pumpkin ; and her gens, so many rats : but the real, 
rougeless, intime Flicflac, Ave knoAv not. This privilege is granted 


HOW TO ASTONISH THE FRENCH. 




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SOME FRENCH FASHIONABLE NOVELS 83 


to no Englishman : we may understand the French language as 
well as Monsieur de Levizac, but never can penetrate into Flicflac’s 
confidence : our ways are not her ways ; our manners of thinking 
not hers ; when we say a good thing, in the course of the night, 
we are wondrous lucky and pleased ; Flicflac will trill you off fifty 
in ten minutes, and wonder at the hetue of the Briton, who has 
never a word to say. We are married, and have fourteen children, 
and would just as soon make love to the Pope of Rome as to any 
one but our own wife. If you do not make love to Flicflac, from 
the day after her marriage to the day she reaches sixty, she thinks 
you a fool. We won’t play at dearth with Trdfle on Sunday nights ; 
and are seen walking, about one o’clock (accompanied by fourteen 
red-haired children, with fourteen gleaming prayer-books), away 
from the church. “ Grand Dieu ! ” cries Trdfle, “ is that man mad ? 
He won’t play at cards on a Sunday ; he goes to church on a 
Sunday : he has fourteen children ! ” 

Was ever Frenchman known to do likewise'? Pass we on to 
our argument, which is, that with our English notions and moral 
and physical constitution, it is quite impossible that we should 
become intimate with our brisk neighbours ; and when such authors 
as Lady Morgan and Mrs. Trollope, having frequented a certain 
number of tea-parties in the French capital, begin to prattle about 
French manners and men — with all respect for the talents of those 
ladies, we do believe their information not to be worth a sixpence : 
they speak to us, not of men, but of tea-parties. Tea-parties are 
the same all the world over ; with the exception that, with tlie 
French, there are more lights and prettier dresses ; and with us a 
mighty deal more tea in the pot. 

There is, however, a cheap and delightful way of travelling, that 
a man may perform in his easy-chair, without expense of passports 
or post-boys. On the wings of a novel, from the next circulating 
library, he sends his imagination a-gadding, and gains acquaintance 
with people and manners whom he could not hope otherwise to 
know. Twopence a volume bears us whithersoever Ave will — back 
to Ivanhoe and Coeur de Lion, or to Waverley and the Young Pre- 
tender, along with Walter Scott ; up to the heights of fashion with 
the charming enchanters of the silver-fork school ; or, better still, 
to the snug inn-parlour, or the jovial tap-room, with Mr. Pickwick 
and his faithful Sancho Weller. I am sure that a man who, a 
hundred years hence, should sit doAvn to write the history of our 
time, would do wrong to put that great contemporary history of 
“ Pickwick ” aside as a frivolous work. It contains true character 
under false names; and, like “Roderick Random,” an inferior work, 
and “ Tom Jones ” (one that is immeasurably superior), gives us a 


84 


THE PARIS SKETCH BOOK 


better idea of the state and ways of the people than one could 
gather from any more pompous or authentic histories. 

We have, therefore, introduced into these volumes one of two 
short reviews of French fiction writers, of particular classes, whose 
Paris sketches may give the reader some notion of manners in that 
capital. If not original, at least the drawings are accurate ; for as 
a Frenchman might have lived a thousand years in England, and 
never could have written “ Pickwick,” an Englishman cannot hope 
to give a good description of the inward thoughts and ways of his 
neighbours. 

To a person inclined to study these, in that light and amusing 
fashion in which the novelist treats them, let us recommend the 
works of a new writer. Monsieur de Bernard, who has painted 
actual manners, without those monstrous and terrible exaggerations 
in which late French writers have indulged ; and who, if he 
occasionally wounds the English sense of propriety (as what French 
man or woman alive will not ?), does so more by slighting than by 
outraging it, as, with their laboured descriptions of all sorts of 
imaginable wickedness, some of his brethren of the press have done. 
M. de Bernard’s characters are men and women of genteel society — 
rascals enough, but living in no state of convulsive crimes ; and we 
follow him in his lively malicious account of their manners, without 
risk of lighting upon any such horrors as Balzac or Dumas has 
provided for us. 

Let us give an instance ; — it is from the amusing novel called 
“ Les Ailes d’Icare,” and contains what is to us quite a new picture 
of a French fashionable rogue. The fashions will change in a few 
years, and the rogue, of course, with them. Let us catch this 
delightful fellow ere he flies. It is impossible to sketch the char- 
acter in a more sparkling, gentlemanlike way than M. de Bernard’s; 
but such light things are very difficult of translation, and the sparkle 
sadly evaporates during the process of decanting. 

A FRENCH FASHIONABLE LETTER 

“My dear Victor, — It is six in the morning: I have just 
come from the English Ambassador’s ball, and as my plans for the 
day do not admit of my sleeping, I write you a line ; for, at this 
moment, saturated as I am with the enchantments of a fairy night, 
all other pleasures would be too wearisome to keep me awake, 
except that of conversing with you. Indeed, were I not to write 
to you now, when should I find the possibility of doing so % Time 
flies here with such a frightful rapidity, my pleasures and my affairs 
whirl onwards together in such a torrentuous galopade, that I am 


SOME FRENCH FASHIONABLE NOVELS 85 

compelled to seize occasion by the forelock ; for each moment has 
its imperious employ Do not then accuse me of negligence : if my 
correspondence has not always that regularity which I would fain 
give it, attribute the fault solely to the whirlwind in which I live, 
and which carries me hither and thither at its will. 

“ However, you are not the only person with whom I am 
behindhand : I assure you, on the contrary, that you are one of 
a very numerous and fashionable company, to whom, towards the 
discharge of my debts, I propose to consecrate four hours to-day. 
I give you the preference to all the world, even to the lovely 
Duchess of San Severino, a delicious Italian, whom, for my special 
happiness, I met last summer at the Waters of Aix. I have also a 
most important negotiation to conclude with one of our Princes of 
Finance : but nHmjmrte, I commence with thee ; friendship before 
love or money — friendship before everything. My despatches con- 
cluded, I am engaged to ride with the Marquis de Grigneure, the 
Comte de Castijars and Lord Cobham, in order that we may re- 
cover, for a breakfast at the Rocher de Cancale that Grigneure has 
lost, the appetite which we all of us so cruelly abused last night at 
the Ambassador’s gala. On my honour, my dear fellow, everybody 
was of a caprice pre^tigieux and a comfortable miroholant. Fancy, 
for a banquet-hall, a Royal orangery hung with white damask ; the 
boxes of the shrubs transformed into so many sideboards ; lights 
gleaming through the foliage ; and, for guests, the loveliest women 
and most brilliant cavaliers of Paris. Orleans and Nemours were 
there, dancing and eating like simple mortals. In a word, Albion 
did the thing very handsomely, and I accord it my esteem. 

“ Here I pause, to call for my valet-de-chambre, and call for 
tea ; for my head is heavy, and I’ve no time for a headache. In 
serving me, this rascal of a Frdddric has broken a cup, true Japan, 
upon my honour — the rogue does nothing else. Yesterday, for 
instance, did he not thump me prodigiously, by letting fall a goblet, 
after Cellini, of which the carving alone cost me three hundred 
francs % I must positively put the wretch out of doors, to ensure 
the safety of my furniture ; and in coiise([uence of this, Eneas, an 
audacious young negro, in whom wisdom hath not waited for years 
— Eneas, my groom, I say, will probably be elevated to the post of 
valet-de-chambre. But where was I ? I think I was .speaking to 
you of an oyster breakfast, to which, on our return from the Park 
(du Bois), a company of pleasant rakes are invited. After quitting 
Borel’s, we propose to adjourn to the Barrifere du Combat, where 
Lord Cobham proposes to try some bull-dogs, which he has brought 
over from England — one of these, O’Connell (Lord Cobham is a 
Tory), has a face in which I place much confidence : I have a bet 


86 


THE PARIS SKETCH BOOK 


of ten louis with Castijars on the strength of it. After the fight, 
we shall make our accustomed appearance at the ‘ Cafd de Paris ’ 
(the only place, by the way, where a man who respects himself 
may be seen), — and then away with frocks and spurs, and on with 
our dress-coats for the rest of the evening. In the first place, I 
shall go doze for a couple of hours at the Opera, where my presence 
is indispensable ; for Coralie, a charming creature, passes this even- 
ing from the rank of the rats to that of the tigers, in a pas-de-trois, 
and our box patronises her. After the Opera, I must show my 
face at two or three salons in the Faubourg St. Honord ; and 
having thus performed my duties to the world of fashion, I return 
to the exercise of my rights as a member of the Carnival. At two 
o’clock all the world meets at the Theatre Ventadour; lions and 
tigers — the whole of our menagerie, will be present. Evod ! off we 
go ! roaring and bounding Bacchanal and Saturnal ; ’tis agreed 
that we shall be everything that is low. To conclude, we sup 
with Castijars, the most ‘furiously dishevelled’ orgy that ever 
was known.” 

The rest of the letter is on matters of finance, equally curious 
and instructive. But pause we for the present, to consider the 
fashionable part : and caricature as it is, we have an accurate 
picture of the actual French dandy. Bets, breakfasts, riding, 
dinners at the “ Cafd de Paris,” and delirious Carnival balls ; the 
animal goes through all such frantic pleasures at the season that 
precedes Lent. He has a wondrous respect for English “gentle- 
men-sportsmen ” ; he imitates their clubs — their love of horseflesh : 
he calls his palefrenier a groom, wears blue bird’s-eye neckcloths, 
sports his pink out hunting, rides steeplechases, and has his Jockey 
Club. The “ tigers and lions ” alluded to in the report have been 
borrowed from our own country, and a great compliment is it to 
Monsieur de Bernard, the writer of the above amusing sketch, that 
he has such a knowledge of English names and things, as to give a 
Tory lord the decent title of Lord Cobham, and to call his dog 
O’Connell. Paul de Kock calls an English nobleman, in one of 
his last novels. Lord Boulingrog, and appears vastly delighted at 
the verisimilitude of the title. 

For the “ rugissements et bondissements, bacchanale et saturnale, 
galop infernal, ronde du sabbat, tout le tremblement,” these words 
give a most clear, untranslatable idea of the Carnival ball. A sight 
more hideous can hardly strike a man’s eye. I was present at one 
where the four thousand guests whirled screaming, reeling, roaring, 
out of the ballroom in the Rue St. Honors, and tore down to the 
column in the Place Vendome, round which they went shrieking 


SOME FRENCH FASHIONABLE NOVELS 87 

tlieir own music, twenty miles an hour, and so tore madly back 
agjiin. Let a man go alone to such a place of amusement, and the 
sight for him is perfectly terrible : the horrid frantic gaiety of the 
place puts him in mind more of the merriment of demons than of 
men : bang, bang, drums, trumpets, chairs, pistol-shots, pour out 
of the orchestra, which seems as mad as the dancers ; whizz, a 
whirlwind of paint and patches, all the costumes under the sun, 
all the ranks in the empire, all the he and she scoundrels of the 
capital, writhed and twisted together, rush by you. If a man 
foils, woe be to him : two thousand screaming menads go trampling 
over his carcass ; they have neither power nor will to stop. 

A set of Malays drunk with bhang and running amuck, a 
company of howling dervishes, may possibly, in our own day, go 
through similar frantic vagaries ; but I doubt if any civilised 
European jjeople but the French would j)ermit and enjoy such 
scenes. Yet our neighbours see little shame in them ; and it is very 
true that men of all classes, liigh and low, here congregate and give 
themselves up to the disgusting worship of the genius of the place. 

From the dandy of the Boulevard and the “ Cafo Anglais,” let 
us turn to the dandy of “ Flicoteau’s ” and the Pays Latin — the 
Paris student, whose exploits among the grisettes are so celebrated, 
and whose fierce republicanism keeps gendarmes for ever on the alert. 
The following is M. de Bernard’s description of him : — 

“ I became acquainted with Dambergeac when we were students 
at the Ecole de Droit ; w'e lived in the same Hotel on the Place du 
Panthdon. No doubt, madam, you have occasionally met little 
children dedicated to the Virgin, and, to this end, clothed in white 
raiment from head to foot : my friend Dambergeac had received a 
different consecration. His father, a great patriot of the Revolution, 
liad determined that his son should bear into the Avorld a sign of 
indelible republicanism ; so, to the great displeasure of his god- 
mother and the parish curate, Dambergeac was christened by the 
pagan name of Harmodius. It was a kind of moral tricolour 
cockade, which the child was to bear through the vicissitudes of 
all the revolutions to come. Under such influences, my friend’s 
cliaracter began to develop itself, and, fired by the example of his 
father, and by the warm atmosphere of his native place, Marseilles, 
he grew up to have an independent spirit, and a grand liberality 
of politics, which were at their height when first I made his 
acquaintance. 

“ He was then a young man of eighteen, with a tall slim figure, 
a broad chest, and a flaming black eye, out of all which personal 


88 


THE PARIS SKETCH BOOK 


charms he knew how to draw the most advantage ; and though his 
costume was such as Staub might probably have criticised, he 
had, nevertheless, a style peculiar to himself — to himself and the 
students, among whom he was the leader of the fashion. A tight 
black coat, buttoned up to the chin, across the chest, set off that 
part of his person ; a low-crowned hat, with a voluminous rim, cast 
solemn shadows over a countenance bronzed by a southern sun ; he 
wore, at one time, enormous flowing black locks, which he sacri- 
ficed pitilessly, however, and adopted a Brutus, as being more 
revolutionary ; finally, he carried an enormous club, that was his 
code and digest : in like manner, De Retz used to carry a stiletto 
in his pocket, by way of a breviary. 

“ Although of different ways of thinking in politics, certain 
sympathies of character and conduct united Dambergeac and myself, 
and we speedily became close friends. I don’t think, in the whole 
course of his three years’ residence, Dambergeac ever went through 
a single course of lectures. For the examinations, he trusted to 
luck, and to his own facility, which was prodigious : as for honours, 
he never aimed at them, but was content to do exactly as little as 
was necessary for him to gain his degree. In like manner he sedu- 
lously avoided those horrible circulating libraries, where daily are 
seen to congregate the ‘reading men’ of om* schools. But, in 
revenge, there was not a milliner’s shop, or a liiigere’s, in all our 
Quartier Latin, which he did not industriously frequent, and of 
which he was not the oracle. Nay, it was said that his victories 
were not confined to the left bank of the Seine ; reports did occasion- 
ally come to us of fabulous adventures by him accomplished in the 
far regions of the Rue de la Paix and the Boulevard Poissonni^re. 
Such recitals were, for us less favoured mortals, like tales of Bacchus 
conquering in the East; they excited our ambition, but not our 
jealousy ; for the superiority of Harniodius was acknowledged by us 
all, and we never thought of a rivalry with him. No man ever 
cantered a hack through the Champs Elysdes with such elegant 
assurance ; no man ever made such a massacre of dolls at the shoot- 
ing-gallery ; or won you a rubber at billiards with more easy grace ; 
or thundered out a couplet of Bdranger with such a roaring melodious 
bass. He was the monarch of the Prado in winter : in summer of 
the Chaumi^re and Mont Parnasse. Not a frequenter of those 
fashionable places of entertainment showed a more amiable laisser- 
aller in the dance — that peculiar dance at which gendarmes think 
proper to blush, and which squeamish society has banished from 
her salons. In a word, Harmodius was the prince of mauvais- 
sujets, a youth with all the accomplishments of Gottingen and Jena, 
and all the eminent graces of his own country. 


SOME FRENCH FASHIONABLE NOVELS 89 

“Besides dissipation and gallantry, our friend had one other 
vast and absorbing occupation — politics, namely : in which he was 
as turbulent and enthusiastic as in pleasure. La Patrie was his 
idol, his heaven, his nightmare ; by day he spouted, by night he 
dreamed, of his country. I have spoken to you of his coifture k la 
Sylla ; need I mention his pipe, his meerschaum pipe, of which 
General Foy’s head was the bowl ; his handkerchief with the Charte 
printed thereon ; and Ins celebrated tricolour braces, which kept the 
.rallying sign of his country ever close to his heart ‘I Besides these 
outward and visible signs of sedition, he had inward and secret 
plans of revolution : he belonged to clubs, frequented associations, 
read the Constitutionnel (Liberals, in those days, swore by the 
Constitutio7inel), harangued |)cers and deputies who had deserved 
well of tlieir country ; and if death happened to fall on such, and 
the Constitutionnel declared their merit, Harmodius was the very 
first to attend their obsequies, or to set his shoulder to their coffins. 

“ Such were his tastes and passions ; his antipathies were not 
less lively. He detested three things ; a Jesuit, a gendarme, and a 
claqueur at a theatre. At this period, missionaries were rife about 
Paris, and endeavoured to re-illume the zeal of the faithful by 
public preachings in the churches. ‘ Infames jdsuites ! ’ would 
Harmodius exclaim, who, in the excess of his toleration, tolerated 
nothing ; and, at the head of a band of philosophers like himself, 
would attend with scrupulous exactitude the meetings of the 
reverend gentlemen. But, instead of a contrite heart, Harmodius 
only brought the abomination of desolation into their sanctuary. 
A perpetual fire of fulminating balls would bang from under the 
feet of the faithful ; odours of impure asafoetida would mingle with 
the fumes of the incense ; and wicked drinking choruses would rise 
up along with tlie holy canticles, in hideous dissonance, reminding 
one of the old orgies under the reign of the Abbot of Unreason. 

“ His hatred of the gendarmes was equally ferocious : and as 
for the claqueurs, woe be to them when Harmodius was in the pit ! 
They knew him, and trembled before him, like the earth before 
Alexander ; and his famous war-cry, ‘ La Carte au chapeau ! ’ was 
so much dreaded, that the ‘entrepreneurs de succbs dramatiques ’ 
demanded twice as much to do the Oddon Theatre (which we 
students and Harmodius frequented), as to applaud at any other 
place of amusement : and, indeed, their double pay was hardly 
gained; Harmodius taking care that they should earn the most of 
it under the benches.” 

This passage, with whi(;h we have taken some liberties, will give 
the reader a more lively idea of the reckless, jovial, turbulent Paris 


90 


THE PARIS SKETCH BOOK 


student, than any with which a foreigner could furnish liini : the 
grisette is his heroine ; and dear old Bdranger, the cynic-epicurean, 
has celebrated him and her in the most delightful verses in the 
world. Of these we may have occasion to say a word or two anon. 
Meanwhile let us follow Monsieur de Bernard in his amusing 
descriptions of his countrymen somewhat farther ; and, having seen 
how Dambergeac was a ferocious republican, being a bachelor, let 
us see how age, sense, and a little government pay — the great agent 
of conversions in France — nay, in England — has reduced him to be 
a pompous, quiet, loyal supporter of the juste milieu : his former 
portrait was that of the student, the present will stand for an 
admirable lively likeness of 

THE SOUS-PEkFET. 

“ Saying that I would wait for Dambergeac in his own study, I 
was introduced into that apartment, and saw around me the usual 
furniture of a man in his station. There was, in the middle of the 
room, a large bureau, surrounded by orthodox arm-chairs ; and 
there Avere many shelves with boxes duly ticketed ; there were a 
number of maps, and among them a great one of the department 
over Avhich Dambergeac ruled ; and facing the Avindows, on a 
wooden pedestal, stood a plaster cast of the ‘ Roi des Fran^ais.’ 
Recollecting my friend’s former republicanism, I smiled at this 
piece of furniture ; but before I had time to carry my observations 
any farther, a heavy rolling sound of carriage-wheels, that caused 
the AvindoAvs to rattle and seemed to shake the Avhole edifice of the 
sub-prefecture, called my attention to the court Avithout. Its iron 
gates Avere flung open, and in rolled, AAuth a great deal of din, a 
chariot escorted by a brace of gendarmes, sword in hand. A tall 
gentleman, Avith a cocked-hat and feathers, Avearing a blue and 
silver uniform coat, descended from the vehicle ; and having, with 
much grave condescension, saluted his escort, mounted the stairs. 
A moment afterAvards the door of the study Avas opened, and I 
embraced my friend. 

“ After the first warmth and salutations, Ave began to examine 
each other Avith an equal curiosity, for eight years had elapsed since 
we had last met. 

“ ‘ You are groAvn very thin and pale,’ said Harmodius, after a 
moment. 

“ ‘ In revenge I find you fat and rosy : if I am a AA^alking satire 
on celibacy, — you, at least, are a living panegyric on marriage.’ 

“ In feet a great change, and such an one as many people would 
call a change for the better, had taken place in my friend ; he had 


SOME FRENCH FASHIONABLE NOVELS 91 

grown fat, and annonnced a decided disposition to become what 
French people call a hel homme : that is, a very fat one. His 
complexion, bronzed before, was now clear white and red : there 
were no more political allusions in his hair, which was, on the con- 
trary, neatly frizzed, and brushed over the forehead, shell-shape. 
This head-dress, joined to a thin pair of whiskers, cut crescent-wise 
from the ear to the nose, gave my friend a regular bourgeois physi- 
ognomy, w^ax-doll-like : he looked a great deal too well ; and, added 
to this, the solemnity of his prefectural costume gave his whole 
appearance a pompous well-fed look that by no means pleased. 

“ ‘ I surprise you,’ said I, ‘ in the midst of your splendour : do 
you know that this costume and yonder attendants have a look 
excessively awTul and splendid 1 You entered your palace just now 
with the .air of a pasha.’ 

“ ‘ You see me in uniform in honour of Monseigneur the Bishop, 
who has just made his diocesan visit, and whom I have just con- 
ducted to the limit of the ay'rondissement.^ 

“ ‘ What ! ’ said I, ‘ you have gendarmes for guards, and dance 
attendance on bishops? There .are no more janissaries and Jesuits, 
I suppose ? ’ The sub-prefect smiled. 

“ ‘ I assure you that my gendarmes are very worthy fellows ; 
and that among the gentlemen who compose our clergy there are 
some of the very best rank and talent : besides, my wife is niece to 
one of the vicars-general.’ 

“ ‘ What have you done with that great Tasso beard that poor 
Armandine used to love so ? ’ 

“ ‘My wife does not like a beard; and you know that what is 
permitted to a student is not very becoming to a magistrate.’ 

“I began to laugh. ‘ Harmodius and a magistrate? — how shall 
I ever couple the two words together ? But tell me, in your corre- 
spondences, your audiences, your sittings with village mayors and 
petty councils, how do you manage to remain awake ? ’ 

“ ‘ In the commencement,’ said Harmodius gravely, ‘ it ivas very 
difficult ; and, in order to keep my eyes open, I used to stick pins 
into my legs : now, how^ever, I am used to it ; and I’m sure I don’t 
take more than fifty pinches of snuff at a sitting.’ 

“ ‘ Ah ! a projws of snuff : you are near Spain here, and were 
always a famous smoker. Give me a cigar, — it will take away the 
musty odour of these piles of papers.’ 

“ ‘ Impossible, my dear ; I don’t smoke ; my wdfe cannot bear a 
cigar.’ 

“ His wife ! ” thought I : always his wife ; and I remember 
Juliette, Avho really grew sick at the smell of a pil)e, and Harmodius 
would smoke, until, at last, the j)oor thing grew to smoke herself, 


92 


THE PARIS SKETCH BOOK 


like a trooper. To compensate, liowever, as much as possible for 
the loss of my cigar, Dambergeac drew from his pocket an enormous 
gold snuff-box, on which figured the selfsame head that I had 
before remarked in plaster, but this time surrounded with a ring of 
pretty princes and princesses, all nicely painted in miniature. As 
for the statue of Louis Philippe, that, in the cabinet of an official, 
is a thing of course ; but the snuffbox seemed to indicate a degree 
of sentimental and personal devotion, such as the old Royalists 
were only supposed to be guilty of. 

“ ‘What ! you are turned decided milieu V said I. 

“ ‘ I am a sous-prdfet,’ answered Harmodius. 

“ I had nothing to say, but held my tongue, wondering, not at 
the change whicli had taken place in the habits, manners, and 
opinions of my friend, but at my own folly, which led me to fancy 
that I should find the student of ’26 in the functionary of ’34. At 
this moment a domestic appeared. 

“ ‘ Madame is waiting for Monsieur,’ said he ; ‘ the last bell 
has gone, and mass is beginning.’ 

“ ‘ Mass ! ’ said I, bounding up from my chair. ‘ You at mass, 
like a decent serious Christian, without crackers in your pocket, and 
bored keys to whistle through % ’ — The sous-prdfet rose, his coun- 
tenance was calm, and an indulgent smile played upon his lips, as 
he said, ‘ My ari'ondissement is very devout ; and not to interfere 
with the belief of the population is the maxim of every wise poli- 
tician : I have precise orders from Government on the point, too, 
and go to eleven-o’clock mass every Sunday.’ ” 

There is a great deal of curious matter for speculation in the 
accounts here so wittily given by M. de Bernard : but, perhaps, it is 
still more curious to think of what he has not written, and to judge 
of his characters, not so much by the words in which he describes 
them, as by the unconscious testimony that the words all together 
convey. In the first place, our author describes a swindler imitat- 
ing the manners of a dandy : and many swindlers and dandies be 
there, doubtless, in London as well as in Paris. But there is 
about the present swindler, and about Monsieur Dambergeac the 
student, and Monsieur Dambergeac the sous-pr^fet, and his friend, 
a rich store of calm internal debauch^ which does not, let us hope 
and pray, exist in England. Hearken to M. de Gustan, and his 
smirking whispers about the Duchess of San Severino, who ^jour 
son honheur particxdier^ &c. &c. Listen to Monsieur Dambergeac’s 
friend’s remonstrances concerning jmxivre Jidiette^ who grew sick at 
the smell of a pipe ; to his naive admiration at the fact that the 
sous-prdfet goes to church : and we may set down, as axioms, that 


SOME FRENCH FASHIONABLE NOVELS 93 

religion is so uncommon among the Parisians, as to awaken the 
surprise of all candid observers ; that gallantry is so common as to 
create no remark, and to be considered as a matter of course. With 
us, at least, the converse of the proposition prevails : it is tlie man 
professing ^’religion who would be remarked and reprehended in 
England; and, if the second-named vice exists, at any rate, it 
adopts the decency of secrecy, and is not made patent and notorious 
to all the Avorld. A French gentleman thinks no more of proclaim- 
ing that lie has a mistress than that he has a tailor ; and one lives 
tlie time of Boccaccio over again, in the thousand and one French 
novels which depict society in that country. 

For instance, here are before us a few specimens (do not, madam, 
be alarmed, you can skip the sentence if you like) to be found in 
as many admirable witty tales, by the before-lauded Monsieur de 
Bernard. He is more remarkable than any other French author, to 
our notion, for writing like a gentleman : there is ease, grace, and 
ton in his style, which, if we judge aright, cannot be discovered in 
Balzac, or Sordid, or Dumas. We have then — “ Gerfaut,” a novel : a 
lovely creature is married to a brave haughty Alsacian nobleman, who 
allows her to spend her winters at Paris, he remaining on his tei'ves, 
cultivating, carousing, and hunting the boar. The lovely creature 
meets the fascinating Gerfaut at Paris ; instantly the latter makes 
love to her ; a duel takes place ; baron killed ; wife throws herself out 
of window ; Gerfaut plunges into dissipation ; and so the tale ends. 

Next: “La Femme de Quarante Ans,” a capital take, full of 
exquisite fun and sparkling satire : La femme de quarante ans has 
a liusband and thy^ee lovers ; all of whom find out their mutual 
connection one starry night ; for tlie lady of forty is of a romantic 
poetical turn, and has given her three admirers a stay' apiece ; saying 
to one and the other, “ Alphonse, when yon pale orb rises in heaven, 
think of me ; ” “ Isidore, when that bright planet sparkles in the 
sky, remember your Caroline,” &c. 

“ Un Acte de Vertu,” from which we have taken Dambergeac’s 
history, contains him, the liusband — a wife — and a brace of lovers ; 
and a great deal of fun takes place in the manner in which one lover 
supplants the other. — Pretty morals truly ! 

If we examine an author who rejoices in the aristocratic name 
of Le Comte Horace de Viel-Castel, we find, though with infinitely 
less wit, exactly the same intrigues going on. A noble Count 
lives in the Faubourg St. Honors, and has a noble Duchess for a 
mistress : he introduces her Grace to the Countess his wife. The 
Countess his wife, in order to rarneney' her lord to his conjugal 
duties, is counselled, by a friend, to 2 ireteyid to take a lovey' : one is 
found, who, poor fellow ! takes the affair in •earnest : climax— duel. 




THE PARIS SKETCH BOOK 


death, despair, and what not ? In the “ Faubourg St. Germain,” 
another novel by the same writer, which professes to describe the 
very pink of that society which Napoleon dreaded more than Russia, 
Prussia, and Austria, there is an old husband, of course ; a senti- 
mental young German nobleman, who falls in love with his wife ; 
and the moral of the piece lies in the showing up of the conduct of 
the lady, who is repreliended — not for deceiving her husband (poor 
devil !) — but for being a flirt, and taking a second lover, to the 
utter despair, confusion, and annihilation of the first. 

Why, ye gods, do Frenchmen marry at all ? Had P^re Enfantin 
(who, it is said, has shaved his ambrosial beard, and is now a clerk in 
a banking-liouse) been allowed to carry out his chaste, just, dignified, 
social scheme, what a deal of marital discomfort might have been 
avoided : — would it not be advisable that a great reformer and lawgiver 
of our own, Mr. Robert Owen, should be presented at the Tuileries, 
and there propound his scheme for the regeneration of France % 

He might, perhaps, be spared, for our country is not yet suffi- 
ciently advanced to give such a philosopher fair-play. In London, 
as yet, there are no blessed Bureaux de Mariage, where an old 
bachelor may have a charming young maiden — for his money ; or a 
widow of seventy may buy a gay young fellow of twenty, for a 
certain number of bank-billets. If niariages de convenance take 
place here (as they will wherever avarice, and poverty, and desire, 
and yearning after riches are to be found), at least, thank God, such 
unions are not arranged upon a regular organised system : there is 
a fiction of attachment with us, and there is a consolation in the 
deceit (‘‘ the homage,” according to the old mot of Rochefoucauld, 
“ wliich vice pays to virtue ”) ; for the very falsehood shows that 
the virtue exists somewhere. We once heard a furious old French 
colonel inveighing against the chastity of English demoiselles : 
“ Figurez-vous, sir,” said he (he had been a prisoner in England), 
“ that these women come down to dinner in low dresses, and walk 
out alone witli the men ! ” — and, pray Heaven, so may they walk, 
fancy-free in all sorts of maiden meditations, and suffer no more 
molestation than that young lady of whom Moore sings, and who 
(there must have been a famous Lord-Lieutenant in those days) 
walked through all Ireland, with rich and rare gems, beauty, and a 
gold ring on her stick, without meeting or thinking of harm. 

Now, wliether Monsieur de Viel-Castel has given a true picture 
of the Faubourg St. Germain, it is impossible for most foreigners to 
say ; but some of his descriptions will not fail to astonish the 
English reader ; and all are filled with that remarkable naif con- 
tempt of the institution called marriage, which we have seen in 
M. de Bernard. The romantic young nobleman of Westphalia arrives 


SOME FRENCH FASHIONABLE NOVELS 95 

at Paris, and is admitted into what a celebrated female author calls 
la crune de la creme de la haute volee of Parisian society. He is 
a youth of about twenty years of age. “No passion had as yet 
come to move his heart, and give life to his faculties ; he was 
awaiting and fearing tlie moment of love ; calling for it, and yet 
trembling at its approach ; feeling, in the depths of his soul, that 
that moment would create a mighty change in his being, and decide, 
perhaps, by its influence, the whole of his future life.” 

Is it not remarkable, that a young nobleman, with these ideas, 
should not pitch upon a demoiselle^ or a widow, at least? but no, 
the rogue must have a married woman, bad luck to him ; and what 
his fate is to be is thus recounted by our author, in the shape of 

A FRENCH FASHIONABLE CONVERSATION. 

“ A lady with a great deal of esprit, to whom forty years’ experi- 
ence of the great world liad given a prodigious perspicacity of judg- 
ment, the Duchess of Chalux, arbitress of the opinion to be held on 
all new-comers to the Faubourg St. Germain, and of their destiny and 
reception in it ; — one of those women, in a word, who make or ruin 
a man, — said, in speaking of Gerard de Stolberg, whom she received 
at her own house, and met everywhere, ‘ This young German will 
never gain for himself the title of an exquisite, or a man of bonnes 
Jortunes, among us. In spite of his calm and politeness, I think 
I can see in his character some rude and insurmountable difficulties, 
which time will only increase, and which will prevent him for ever 
from bending to the exigencies of either profession ; but, unless 
I very much deceive myself, he will, one day, be the hero of a 
veritable romance.’ 

“ ‘ He, madame % ’ answered a young man, of fair complexion 
and fair hair, one of the most devoted slaves of the fashion : — ‘ He, 
Madame la Duchesse ? Why, the man is, at best, but an original, 
fished out of the Rhine : a dull heavy creature, as much capable 
of understanding a woman’s heart as I am of speaking bas-Breton.’ 

“ ‘ Well, Monsieur de Belport, you will speak bas-Breton. 
Monsieur de Stolberg has not your admirable ease of manner, nor 
your facility of telling pretty nothings, nor your — in a word, that 
particular something which makes you the most recherche man of 
the Faubourg St. Germain ; and even I avow to you that, were I still 
young, and a coquette, and that I took it into my head to have 
a lover, I would prefer you.’ 

“ All this was said by the Duchess, with a certain air of raillery 
and such a mixture of earnest and malice, that Monsieur de Belport, 
piqued not a little, could not help saying, as he bowed profoundly 


THE PARIS SKETCH BOOK 


96* 

before the Duchess’s chair, ‘ And might I, madame, be permitted 
to ask tlie reason of this preference 1 ’ 

“ ‘ 0 moil Dieii, oiii,’ said the Duchess, always in the same 
tone ; ‘ because a lover like you would never think of carrying his 
attachment to tlie height of passion ; and these passions, do you 
know, have frightened me all my life. One cannot retreat at will 
from the grasp of a passionate lover; one leaves behind one some 
fragment of one’s moral self^ or the best part of one’s physical life, 
A passion, if it does not kill you, adds cruelly to your years ; in a 
word, it is the very lowest possible taste. And now you under- 
stand why I should prefer you, M. de Belport — you who are reputed 
to be the leader of the fasliion.’ 

“ ‘ Perfectly,’ murmured the gentleman, piqued more and more. 

“ ‘ Gerard de Stolberg will be passionate. I don’t know what 
woman will please him, or will be pleased by him ’ (here the 
Duchess of Chalux spoke more gravely); ‘but his love will be 
no play, I repeat it to you once more. All this astonishes you, 
because you, great leaders of the ton that you are, never can fancy 
that a hero of romance should be found among your number. 
Gerard de Stolberg — but look, here he comes ! ’ 

“ M. de Belport rose, and quitted the Duchess, without believ- 
ing in her prophecy : but he could not avoid smiling as he passed 
near the hero of romance. 

“ It was because M. de Stolberg had never, in all his life, been 
a hero of romance, or even an apprentice-hero of romance. 

“ Gerard de Stolberg was not, as yet, initiated into the thousand 
secrets in the chronicle of the great world : he knew but super- 
ficially the society in which he lived; and, therefore, he devoted 
his evening to the gathering of all the information which he could 
acquire from the indiscreet conversations of the people about him. 
His whole man became ear and memory; so much was Stolberg 
convinced of the necessity of becoming a diligent student in this 
new school, where was taught the art of knowing and advancing in 
the great world. In the recess of a window he learned more on this 
one niglit than months of investigation would have tauglit him. 
The talk of a ball is more indiscreet than the confidential chatter 
of a company of idle women. No man present at a ball, whether 
listener or speaker, thinks he has a right to aifect any indulgence 
for his companions, and the most learned in malice will always 
pass for the most witty. 

“‘How!’ said the Viscount de Mondragd : ‘the Duchess of 
Rivesalte arrives alone to-night, without her inevitable Dormilly I ’ 

■ — And the Viscount, as he spoke, pointed towards a tall and 


SOME FRENCH FASHIONABLE NOVELS 97 

slender young woman, who, gliding rather than walking, met the 
ladies by whom she passed with a graceful and modest salute, and 
replied to the looks of the men hy brilliant veiled glances full of 
coquetry and attack. 

“ ‘ Parbleu ! ’ said an elegant personage standing near the 
Viscount de Mondragd, ‘don’t you see Dormilly ranged behind 
the Duchess, in quality of train-bearer, and hiding, under his long 
locks and his great screen of moustaches, the blushing conscious- 
ness of his good luck ? — They call him the fourth chapter of the 
Duchess’s memoirs. The little Marquis d’Alberas is ready to die 
out of spite ; but the best of the joke is, that she has only taken 
poor de Vendre for a lover in order to vent her spleen on him. 
Look at him against the chimney yonder : if the Marchioness do 
not break at once with him by quitting him for somebody else, 
the poor fellow wdll turn an idiot.’ 

“ ‘ Is he jealous 1 ’ asked a young man, looking as if he did not 
know what jealousy was, and as if he had no time to be jealous. 

“‘Jealous! — the very incarnation of jealousy; the second edi- 
tion, revised, corrected, and considerably enlarged; as jealous as 
poor Gressigny, who is dying of it.’ 

“ ‘ What ! Gressigny too 1 why, ’tis growing quite into fashion : 
egad ! / must try and be jealous,’ said Monsieur de Beauval. ‘ But 
see 1 here comes the delicious Duchess of Bellefiore,’ ” &c. &c. &c. 

Enough, enough : this kind of fashionable Parisian conversation, 
which is, says our author, “ a prodigious labour of improvising,” a 
“ chef-d’oeuvre,” a “ strange and singular thing, in which monotony 
is unknown,” seems to be, if correctly reported, a “ strange and 
singular thing” indeed; but somewhat monotonous at least to an 
English reader, and “ prodigious ” only, if we may take leave to say 
so, for the wonderful rascality which all the conversationists betray. 
Miss Neverout and the Colonel, in Swift’s famous dialogue, are a 
thousand times more entertaining and moral ; and, besides, Ave can 
laugh at those worthies as well as with them ; whereas the “ pro- 
digious ” French wits are to us quite incomprehensible. Fancy a 

duchess as old as Lady herself, and Avho should begin to tell 

us “ of Avhat she would do if ever she had a mind to take a lover ; ” 
and another duchess, with a fourth lover, tripping modestly among 
the ladies, and returning the gaze of the men by veiled glances, full 
of coquetry and attack 1 — Parbleu, if Monsieur de Viel-Castel should 
find himself among a society of French duchesses, and they should 
tear his eyes out, and send the fashionable Orpheus floating by 
the Seine, his slaughter might almost be considered as justifiable 
Counticide. 

5 


G 


A GAMBIFB’S DEATH 


A nybody who was at C school some twelve years since, 

must recollect Jack Attwood : he was the most dashing lad 
^ in the place, with more money in his pocket than belonged 
to the whole fifth form in which we were companions. 

When he was about fifteen. Jack suddenly retreated from C , 

and presently we heard that he had a commission in a cavalry regi- 
ment, and was to have a great fortune from his father, when that old 
gentleman should die. Jack himself came to confirm these stories a 
few months after, and paid a visit to his old school chums. He had 
laid aside his little school-jacket and inky cordimoys, and now appeared 
in such a splendid military suit as won the respect of all of us. His 
hair was dripping with oil, his hands were covered with rings, he 
had a dusky down over his upper lip which looked not unlike a 
moustache, and a multiplicity of frogs and braiding on his surtout, 
which would have sufficed to lace a field-marshal. When old Swish- 
tail, the usher, passed in his seedy black coat and gaiters. Jack gave 
him such a look of contempt as set us all a-laughing : in fact it was 
his turn to laugh now ; for he used to roar very stoutly some months 
before, when Swishtail was in the custom of belabouring him with 
his great cane. 

Jack’s talk was all about the regiment and the tine fellows in 
it : how he had ridden a steeplechase with Captain Boldero, and 
licked him at the last hedge ; and how he had very nearly fought a 
duel with Sir George Grig, about dancing with Lady Mary Slamken 
at a ball. “ I soon made the baronet know what it was to deal with 
a man of the N — th,” said Jack. “Dammee, sir, when I lugged 
out my barkers, and talked of fighting across the mess-room table. 

Grig turned as pale as a sheet, or as ” 

“Or as you used to do, Attwood, when Swishtail hauled you 
up,” piped out little Hicks, the foundation-boy. 

It w^as beneath Jack’s dignity to thrash anybody, now, but a 
grown-up baronet ; so he let off little Hicks, and passed over the 
general titter which was raised at his expense. However, he enter- 
tained us with his histories about lords and ladies, and So-and-so 


A GAMBLER’S DEATH 


99 

“of ours,” until we thought him one of the greatest men in his 
Majesty’s service, and until the school-bell rung; when, with a 
heavy heart, we got our books together, and marched in to be 
whacked by old Swishtail. I promise you he revenged himself on 
us for Jack’s contempt of him. I got that day at least twenty cuts 
to my share, which ought to have belonged to Cornet Attwood, of 
the N — th Dragoons. 

When we came to think more coolly over our quondam school- 
fellow’s swaggering talk and manner, we were not quite so impressed 
by his merits as *at his first appearance among us. We recollected 
how he used, in former times, to tell us great stories, which were so 
monstrously improbable that the smallest boy in the school would 
scout them; how often we caught him tripping in facts, and how 
unblushingly he admitted his little errors in the score of veracity. 
He and I, though never great friends, had been close companions : 
I was Jack’s form-fellow (we fought with amazing emulation for the 
last place in the class) ; but still I was rather hurt at the coolness 
of my old comrade, who had forgotten all our former intimacy in 
his steeplechases with Captain Boldero and his duel with Sir 
George Grig. 

Nothing more was heard of Attwood for some years ; a tailor 

one day came down to C , who had made clothes for Jack in 

his schooldays, and furnished him with regimentals : he produced a 
long bill for one hundred and twenty pounds and upwards, and 
asked where news might be had of his customer. Jack was in 
India, with his regiment, shooting tigers and jackals, no doubt. 
Occasionally, from that distant country, some magnificent rumour 
would reach us of his proceedings. Once I heard that he had been 
called to a court-martial for unbecoming conduct; another time, 
that he kept twenty horses, and won the gold plate at the Calcutta 
races. Presently, however, as the recollections of the fifth form 
wore away. Jack’s image disappeared likewise, and I ceased to ask 
or think about my college chum. 

A year since, as I was smoking my cigar in the “ Estaminet du 
Grand Balcon,” an excellent smoking-shop, where the tobacco is 
unexceptionable, and the hollands of singular merit, a dark-looking, 
thick-set man, in a greasy well-cut coat, with a shabby hat, cocked 
on one side of his dirty face, took the place opposite me, at the 
little marble table, and called for brandy. I did not much admire 
the impudence or the appearance of my friend, nor the fixed stare 
with which he cliose to examine me. At last, he thrust a great 
greasy hand across the table, and said, “Titmarsh, do you forget 
your old friend Attwood % ” 

I confess my recognition of him was not so joyful as on the day 


100 


THE PARIS SKETCH BOOK 


ten years earlier, when he had come, bedizened with lace and gold 

rings, to see us at C school : a man in the tenth part of a 

century learns a deal of worldly wisdom, and his hand, which goes 
naturally forward to seize the gloved finger of a millionaire, or a 
milor, draws instinctively back from a dirty fist, encompassed by 
a ragged wristband and a tattered cuff. But Attwood was in nowise 
so backward ; and the iron squeeze with which he shook my passive 
paw, proved that he was either very affectionate or very poor. You, 
my dear sir, who are reading this history, know very well the great 
art of shaking hands : recollect how you shook Lord Dash’s hand 
the other day, and how you shook off poor Blank, when he came 
to borrow five pounds of you. 

However, the genial influence of the hollands speedily dissipated 
anything like coolness between us ; and, in the course of an hour’s 
conversation, we became almost as intimate as when we were suffer- 
ing together under the ferule of old Swishtail. Jack told me that 
he had quitted the army in disgust ; and that his father, who was 
to leave him a fortune, had died ten thousand pounds in debt : he 
did not touch upon his own circumstances ; but I could read them 
in his elbows, which were peeping through his old frock. He talked 
a great deal, however, of runs of luck, good and bad ; and related 
to me an infallible plan for breaking all the play-banks in Europe — 
a great number of old tricks ; — and a vast q uantity of gin-punch was 
consumed on the occasion ; so long, in fact, did our conversation 
continue, that, I confess it with shame, the sentiment, or something 
stronger, quite got the better of me, and I have, to this day, no sort 
of notion how our palaver concluded. — Only, on the next morning, 
I did not possess a certain five-pound note, which on the previous 
evening was in my sketch-book (by far the prettiest drawing by the 
way in the collection) ; but there, instead, was a strip of paper, 
thus inscribed : — 


“I 0 U 

Five Pounds. John Attwood, 

Late of the N — th Dragoons.” 

I suppose Attwood borrowed the money, from this remarkable and 
ceremonious acknowledgment on his part ; had I been sober I would 
just as soon have lent him tlie nose on my face ; for, in my then 
circumstances, the note was of much more consequence to me. 

As I lay, cursing my ill-fortune, and thinking how on earth I 
should manage to subsist for the next two months, Attwood burst 
into my little garret — his face strangely flushed — singing and shout- 
ing as if it had been the night before. “ Titmarsh,” cried he, “ you 


A GAMBLER’S DEATH 


101 


are my preserver ! — my best friend ! Look here, and here, and 
here ! ” And at every word Mr. Attwood produced a handful of 
gold, or a glittering heap of five-franc pieces, or a bundle of greasy 
dusky bank-notes, more beautiful than either silver or gold : — he 
had won thirteen thousand francs after leaving me at midnight in 
my garret. He separated my poor little all, of six pieces, from this 
shining and imposing collection ; and the passion of envy entered 
my soul : I felt far more anxious now tlian before, although starva- 
tion was then staring me in the face ; I hated Attwood for cheating 
me out of all this wealth. Poor fellow ! it had been better for him 
had he never seen a shilling of it. 

However, a grand breakfast at the Cafd Anglais dissipated my 
chagrin ; and I will do my friend the justice to say, that he nobly 
shared some portion of his good fortune with me. As far as the 
creature comforts were concerned I feasted as well as he, and never 
was particular as to settling my share of the reckoning. 

Jack now changed his lodgings; had cards, with Captain Attwood 
engraved on them, and drove about a prancing cab-horse, as tall as 
the giraffe at the Jardin des Plantes ; he had as many frogs on his 
coat as in the old days, and fre(iuented all the flash restaurateurs 
and boarding-houses of the capital. Madame de Saint Laurent, 
and Madame la Baronne de Vaudrey, and Madame la Comtesse de 
Don Jonville, ladies of the highest rank, who keep a societe choisie 
and condescend to give dinners at five francs a head, vied with each 
other in their attentions to Jack. His was the wing of the fowl, 
and the largest portion of the Charlotte-Russe ; his was the place 
at the ^cart4 table, where the Countess would ease him nightly of 
a few pieces, declaring that he was the most charming cavalier, 
la Jleur dJ Albion. Jack’s society, it may be seen, was not very 
select ; nor, in truth, were his inclinations : he was a careless, dare- 
devil, Macheath kind of fellow, who might be seen daily with a wife 
on each arm. 

It may be supposed that, with the life he led, his five hundred 
pounds of winnings would not last him long ; nor did they ; but, 
for some time, his luck never deserted him ; and his cash, instead 
of growing lower, seemed always to maintain a certain level ; he 
played every night. 

Of course, such a humble fellow as I could not hope for a con- 
tinued acquaintance and intimacy with Attwood. He grew over- 
bearing and cool, I thought; at any rate I did not admire my 
situation as his follower and dependant, and left his grand dinner 
for a certain ordinary, where I could partake of five capital dishes 
for ninepence. Occasionally, however, Attwood favoured me with 
a visit, or gave me a drive behind his great cab-horse. He had 


102 


THE PARIS SKETCH BOOK 


formed a whole liost of friends besides. There was Fips, the 
barrister ; Heaven knows what he was doing at Paris ; and Gortz, 
the West Indian, who was there on the same business ; and Flapper, 
a medical student, — all these three I met one night at Flapper’s 
rooms, where Jack was invited, and a great “ spread ” was laid in 
honour of him. 

Jack arrived rather late — he looked pale and agitated ; and, 
though he ate no supper, he drank raw brandy in such a manner as 
made Flapper’s eyes wink : the poor fellow had but three bottles, 
and Jack bade fair to swallow them all. However, the West 
Indian generously remedied the evil, and, producing a napoleon, we 
speedily got the change for it in the shape of four bottles of 
champagne. 

Our supper was uproariously harmonious : Fips sang the “ Good 
Old English Gentleman ” ; Jack, the “ British Grenadiers ” ; and 
your humble servant, when called upon, sang that beautiful ditty, 
“ When the Bloom is on the Rye,” in a manner that drew tears 
from every eye, except Flapper’s, who was asleep, and Jack’s, who 
was singing the “ Bay of Biscay 0,” at the same time. Gortz and 
Fips were all the time lunging at each other with a pair of single- 
sticks, the barrister having a very strong notion that he was Richard 
the Third. At last Fips hits the West Indian such a blow across 
his sconce, that the other grew furious; he seized a champagne 
bottle, which was, providentially, empty, and hurled it across the 
room at Fips : had that celebrated barrister not bowed his head at 
the moment, the Queen’s Bench would have lost one of its most 
eloquent practitioners. 

Fips stood as straight as he could ; his cheek was pale with 
wrath. “M-m-ister Go-gortz,” he said, “I always heard you were 
a blackguard ; now I can pr-pr-peperove it. Flapper, your pistols ! 
every ge-ge-genlmn knows what I mean.” 

Young Mr. Flapper had a small pair of pocket-pistols, which 
the tipsy barrister had suddenly remembered, and with which he 
proposed to sacrifice the West Indian. Gortz was nothing loth, 
but was quite as valorous as the lawyer. 

Attwood, who, in spite of his potations, seemed the soberest 
man of the party, had much enjoyed the scene, until this sudden 
demand for the weapons. “ Pshaw ! ” said he eagerly, “ don’t give 
these men the means of murdering each other ; sit down and let us 
have another song.” But they would not be still; and Flapper 
forthwith produced his pistol-case, and opened it, in order that the 
duel might take place on the spot. There were no pistols there ! 
“ I beg your pardon,” said Attwood, looking much confused ; “ I — 
I took the pistols home with me to clean them ! ” 


A GAMBLER’S DEATH 


103 


I don’t know what there was in his tone, or in the words, but 
we were sobered all of a sudden. Attwood was conscious of the 
singular effect produced by liini, for he blushed, and endeavoured 
to speak of other things, but we could not bring our spirits back to 
the mark again, and soon separated for the night. As we issued 
into the street. Jack took me aside and whispered, “Have you a 
napoleon, Titmarsh, in your purse 1 ” Alas ! I was not so rich. 
My reply was, that I was coming to Jack, only in the morning, to 
borrow a similar sum. 

He did not make any reply, but turned away homeward : I 
never heard him speak another word. 


Two mornings after (for none of our party met on the day 
succeeding the supper), I was awakened by my porter, who brought 
a pressing letter from Mr. Gortz : — 

“Dear T., — I wish you would come over here to breakfast. 
There’s a row about Attwood. — Yours truly, 

“Solomon Gortz.” 

I immediately set forward to Gortz’s ; he lived in the Rue du 
Helder, a few doors from Attwood’s new lodging. If the reader is 
curious to know the house in which the catastrophe of this history 
took place, he has but to march some twenty doors down from the 
Boulevard des Italiens, when lie will see a fine door, with a naked 
Cupid shooting at him from the hall, and a Venus beckoning him 
up the stairs. On arri^dng at the West Indian’s, at about mid-day 
(it was a Sunday morning), I found that gentleman in his dressing- 
gown, discussing, in the company of Mr. Tips, a large plate of bifteck 
aiuK 2^ommes. 

“ Here’s a pretty row ! ” said Gortz, quoting from his letter : 
— “ Attwood’s off — have a bit of beefsteak % ” 

“ What do you mean ? ” exclaimed I, adopting the familiar 
phraseology of my acquaintances : — “Attwood off? — has he cut his 
stick ? ” 

“Not bad,” said the feeling and elegant Fips^“not such a bad 
guess, my boy ; but he has not exactly cut his sticks 

“ What then ? ” 

“ Why, his throat ^ The man’s mouth was full of bleeding 
beef as he uttered this gentlemanly witticism. 

I wish I could say that I was myself in the least affected by the 
news. I did not joke about it like my friend Fips ; this was more 
for propriety’s sake than for feeling’s : but for my old school ac- 
quaintance, the friend of my early days, the merry associate of the 


104 


THE PARIS SKETCH BOOK 


last few months, I own, with shame, that I had not a tear or a 
pang. In some German tale there is an account of a creature most 
beautiful and bewitching, whom all men admire and follow; but 
this charming and fantastic spirit only leads them, one by one, into 
ruin, and then leaves them. The novelist, who describes her beauty, 
says that his heroine is a fairy, and has no heart. I think the 
intimacy which is begotten over the wine-bottle is a spirit of this 
nature ; I never knew a good feeling come from it, or an honest 
friendship made by it : it only entices men and ruins them ; it is 
only a phantom of friendship and feeling, called up by the delirious 
blood, and the wicked spells of the wine. 

But to drop this strain of moralising (in which the writer is not 
too anxious to proceed, for he cuts in it a most pitiful figure), we 



passed sundry criticisms upon poor Attwood’s character, expressed 
our horror at his death — which sentiment was fully proved by 
Mr. Fips, who declared that the notion of it made him feel quite 
faint, and was obliged to drink a large glass of brandy ; and, finally, 
we agreed that we would go and see the poor fellow’s corpse, and 
witness, if necessary, his burial. 

Flapper, who had joined us, was the first to propose this visit : 
he said he did not mind the fifteen francs which Jack owed him for 
billiards, but he was anxious to get bach his pistol. Accordingly, 
we sallied forth, and speedily arrived at the hotel which Attwood 
inhabited still. He had occupied, for a time, very fine apartments 
in this house : and it was only on arriving there that day that we 
found he had been gradually driven from his magnificent suite of 
rooms au x>remier., to a little chamber in the fifth storey ; — we 


A GAMBLER’S DEATH 


105 


mounted, and found him. It was a little shabby room, with a few 
articles of rickety furniture, and a bed in an alcove ; the light from 
the one window was falling full upon the bed and the body. Jack 
was dressed in a fine lawn shirt ; he had kept it, poor fellow, to die 
in; for in all his drawers and cupboards there was not a single 
article of clothing ; he had pawned everything by which lie could 
raise a penny — desk, books, dressing-case, and clothes ; and not a 
single halfpenny was found in his possession.* 

He was lying as I have drawn liim, one hand on his breast, the 
other falling towards the ground. There was an expression of perfect 
calm on the face, and no mark of blood to stain the side towards 
the light. On the other side, however, there was a great pool of 
black blood, and in it the pistol ; it looked more like a toy than a 
weapon to take away the life of this vigorous young man. In his 
forehead, at the side, was a small black wound ; Jack’s life had 
passed through it ; it was little bigger than a mole. 

“ Regardez un pen,” said the landlady ; “ messieurs, il m’a g^td 
trois matelas, et il me doi quarante-quatre francs.” 

This was all his epitaph : he had spoiled three mattresses, and 
owed the landlady four-and-forty francs. In the whole world there 
was not a soul to love him or lament him. We, his friends, were 
looking at his body more as an object of curiosity, watching it with 
a kind of interest with which one follows the fifth act of a tragedy, 
and leaving it with the same feeling with which one leaves the 
theatre when the play is over and the curtain is down. 

Beside Jack’s bed, on his little “ table de nuit,” lay the remains 
of his last meal, and an open letter, which we read. It was from 
one of his suspicious acquaintances of former days, and ran thus : — 

“ Oil es-tu, cher Jack ? ivhy you not come and see me — tu me 
dois de I’argent, entends tu ?— uii chapeau, une cachemire, a box of 
the Flay. Viens demain soir, jc t’attendrai at eight o'clock^ Passage 
des Panoramas. My Sir is at his country. — Adieu k demain. 

“ Fifine.” 

“ Samedi.” 


I shuddered as I walked through this very Passage des Pano- 
ramas, in the evening. The girl was there, pacing to and fro, and 
looking in the countenance of every passer-by, to recognise Attwood. 

* In order to account for these trivial details, the reader must be told that 
the story is, for the chief part, a fact ; and that the little sketch on the opposite 
pnge was taken from nature. The letter was likewise a copy from one found 
in the manner described. 


106 


THE PARIS SKETCH BOOK 


“ Adieu a demain ! ” — there was a dreadful meaning in the words, 
which the writer of them little knew. “ Adieu k demain ! ” — the 
morrow was come, and the soul of the poor suicide was now in the 
presence of Cod. I dare not think of his fate ; for, except in the 
fact of his poverty and desperation, was he worse than any of us, 
his companions, who had shared his debauches, and marched with 
him up to the very brink of the grave ? 

There is but one more circumstance to relate regarding poor 
Jack — his burial ; it was of a piece with his death. 

He was nailed into a paltry coffin and buried, at the expense of 
the arrondissement, in a nook of the burial-place beyond the Barri^re 
de I’Etoile. They buried him at six o’clock, of a bitter winter’s 
morning, and it was with difficulty that an English clergyman could 
be found to read a service over his grave. The three men who have 
figured in this history acted as Jack’s mourners ; and as the cere- 
mony was to take place so early in the morning, these men sat up 
the night through, and were almost drunk as they followed his 
coffin to its resting-place. 


MORAL. 

“When we turned out in our greatcoats,” said one of them 

afterwards, “reeking of cigars and brandy-and-water, d e, sir, 

we quite frightened the old buck of a parson ; he did not much like 
our company.” After the ceremony was concluded, these gentlemen 
were very happy to get home to a warm and comfortable breakfast, 
and finished the day royally at Frascati’s. 


NAPOLEON AND HIS SYSTEM 

ON PRINCE LOUIS NAPOLEON’s WORK 


TY person who recollects the history of the absurd outbreak 



of Strasburg, in which Prince Louis Napoleon Bonaparte 


^ figured, three years ago, must remember that, however silly 
the revolt was, however foolish its pretext, however doubtful its 
aim, and inexperienced its leader, there was, nevertheless, a party, 
and a considerable one in France, that were not unwilling to lend 
the new projectors their aid. The troops who declared against the 
Prince, were, it was said, all but willing to declare for him ; and 
it was certain that, in many of the regiments of the army, there 
existed a strong spirit of disaffection, and an eager wish for the 
return of the Imperial system and family. 

As to the good that was to be derived from the change, that 
is another question. Why the Emperor of the French should be 
better than the King of the French, or the King of the French 
better than the King of France and NavaiTe, it is not our business 
to inquire ; but all the three monarchs have no lack of supporters ; 
republicanism has no lack of supporters ; St. Simonianism was 
followed by a respectable body of admirers; Robespierrism has a 
select party of friends. If, in a country where so many quacks 
have had their day. Prince Louis Napoleon thought he might renew 
the Imperial quackery, why should he not? It has recollections 
with it that must always be dear to a gallant nation; it has 
certain claptraps in its vocabulary that can never fail to inflame a 
vain, restless, grasping, disappointed one. 

In the first place, and don’t let us endeavour to disguise it, 
they hate us. Not all the protestations of friendship, not all the 
wisdom of Lord Palmerston, not all the diplomacy of our dis- 
tinguished plenipotentiary, Mr. Henry Lytton Bulwer — and, let us 
add, not all the benefit which both countries would derive from 
the alliance — can make it, in our times at least, permanent and 
cordial. They hate us. The Carlist organs revile us with a 
querulous fury that never sleeps ; the moderate party, if they 


108 


THE PARIS SKETCH BOOK 


admit the utility of our alliance, are continually pointing out our 
treachery, our insolence, and our monstrous infractions of it; and 
for the Republicans, as sure as the morning comes, the columns of 
their journals thunder out volleys of fierce denunciations against 
our unfortunate country. They live by feeding the national hatred 
against England, by keeping old wounds open, by recurring cease- 
lessly to the history of old quarrels, and as in these we, by God’s 
help, by land and by sea, in old times and late, have had the 
uppermost, they perpetuate the shame and mortification of the 
losing party, the bitterness of past defeats, and the eager desire 
to avenge them. A party which knows how to exploiter this 
hatred will always be popular to a certain extent ; and the Imperial 
scheme has this, at least, among its conditions. 

Tlien there is the favomdte claptrap of the “ natural frontier.” 
The Frenchman yearns to be bounded by the Rhine and the Alps ; 
and next follows the cry, “Let France take her place among 
nations, and’ direct, as she ought to do, the affairs of Europe.” 
These are the two chief articles contained in the new Imperial 
programme, if we may credit the journal which has been established 
to advocate the cause. A natural boundary — stand among the 
nations — popular development — Russian alliance, and a reduction 
of la perjide Albion to its proper insignificance. As yet we know 
little more of the plan : and yet such foundations are sufficient to 
build a party upon, and with such windy weapons a substantial 
Government is to be overthrown ! 

In order to give these doctrines, such as they are, a chance of 
finding favour with his countrymen. Prince Louis has the advantage 
of being able to refer to a former great professor of them — his uncle 
Napoleon. His attempt is at once pious and prudent ; it exalts 
the memory of the uncle, and furthers the interests of the nephew, 
who attempts to show what Napoleon’s ideas really were; what 
good had already resulted from the practice of them ; how cruelly 
they had been thwarted by foreign wars and difficulties ; and what 
vast benefits would have resulted from them ; ay, and (it is reason- 
able to conclude) might still, if the French nation would be wise 
enough to pitch upon a governor that would. continue the interrupted 
scheme. It is, however, to be borne in mind that the Emperor 
Napoleon had certain arguments in favour of his opinions for the 
time being, which his nephew has not employed. On the 1 3th 
Venddmiaire, when General Bonaparte believed in the excellence 
of a Directory, it may be remembered that he aided his opinions 
by forty pieces of artillery, and by Colonel Murat at the head of 
his dragoons. There was no resisting such a philosopher ; the 
Directory was established forthwith, and the sacred cause of the 


NAPOLEON AND HIS SYSTEM 


109 


minority triumphed. In like manner, when the General was con- 
vinced of the weakness of the Directory, and saw fully the necessity 
of establishing a Consulate, Avhat were his arguments'? Moreau, 
Lannes, Murat, Berthier, Leclerc, Lefebvre — gentle apostles of the 
truth ! — marched to St. Cloud, and there, with fixed bayonets, 
caused it to prevail. Error vanished in an instant. At once five 
hundred of its high priests tumbled out of windows, and lo ! three 
Consuls appeared to guide the destinies of France ! How much 
more expeditious, reasonable, and clinching was this argument of 
the 18th Brumaire, than any one that can be found in any pamphlet! 
A fig for your duodecimos and octavos I Talk about points, there 
are none like those at the end of a bayonet ; and the most powerful 
of styles is a good rattling “ article ” from a nine-pounder. 

At least this is our interpretation of the manner in which were 
always propagated the Idee& Napoleoniennes. Not such, however, 
is Prince Louis’s belief ; and, if you wish to go along with him in 
opinion, you will discover that a more liberal, peaceable, prudent 
Prince never existed : you will read that “ the mission of Napoleon ” 
was to be the “ testamentary executor of the Revolution ; ” and the 
Prince should have added the legatee ; or, more justly still, as well 
as the executor^ he should be called the executioner, and then his 
title would be complete. In Veiiddmiaire, the military Tartuffe, 
he threw aside the Revolution’s natural heirs, and made her, as it 
were, alter her will ; on the 1 8th of Brumaire he strangled her, 
and on the 1 9th seized on her property, and kept it until force 
deprived him of it. Illustrations, to be sure, are no arguments, 
but the example is the Prince’s, not ours. 

In the Prince’s eyes, then, his uncle is a god ; of all monarchs 
the most wise, upright, and merciful. Thirty years ago the opinion 
had millions of supporters; while millions again were ready to 
avouch the exact contrary. It is curious to think of the former 
difference of opinion concerning Napoleon; and in reading his 
nephew’s rapturous encomiums of him one goes back to the days 
when we ourselves were as loud and mad in his dispraise. Who 
does not remember his own personal hatred and horror, twenty-five 
years ago, for the man whom we used to call the “ bloody Corsican 
upstart and assassin 1 ” What stories did we not believe of him ? — - 
what murders, rapes, robberies, not lay to his charge? — we who 
were living within a few miles of his territory, and might, by books 
and newspapers, be made as w^ell acquainted with his merits or 
demerits as any of his own countrymen. 

Then was the age wiien the “Id^es Napoldoniennes ” might 
have passed through many editions ; for while we were thus out- 
rageously bitter, our neighbours were as extravagantly attached to 


no 


THE PARIS SKETCH BOOK 


him by a strange infatuation — adored him like a god, whom we 
chose to consider as a fiend ; and vowed that, under his government, 
their nation had attained its highest pitch of grandeur and glory. 
In revenge there existed in England (as is proved by a thousand 
authentic documents) a monster so hideous, a tyrant so ruthless and 
bloody, that the world’s history cannot show his parallel. This 
ruffian’s name was, during the early part of the French Revolution, 
Pittetcobourg. Pittetcobourg’s emissaries were in every corner of 
France ; Pittetcobourg’s gold chinked in the pockets of every traitor 
in Europe ; it menaced the life of the god-like Robespierre ; it 
drove into cellars and fits of delirium even the gentle philanthropist 
Marat ; it fourteen times caused the dagger to be lifted against the 
bosom of the First Consul, Emperor, and King, — that first, great, 
glorious, irresistible, cowardly, contemptible, bloody hero and fiend, 
Bonaparte, before mentioned. 

On our side of the Channel we have had leisure, long since, to 
reconsider our verdict against Napoleon ; though, to be sure, we 
have not changed our opinion about Pittetcobourg. After five-and- 
thirty years all parties bear witness to his honesty, and speak with 
affectionate reverence of his patriotism, his genius, and his private 
virtue. In France, however, or, at least, among certain parties in 
France, there has been no such modification of opinion. With the 
Republicans, Pittetcobourg is Pittetcobourg still, — crafty, bloody, 
seeking whom he may devour ; and per fide Albion more perfidious 
than ever. This hatred is the point of union between the Republic 
and the Empire ; it has been fostered ever since, and must be con- 
tinued by Prince Louis, if he would hope to conciliate both parties. 

With regard to the Emperor, then. Prince Louis erects to his 
memory as fine a monument as his wits can raise. One need not 
say that the imperial apologist’s opinion should be received with 
the utmost caution ; for a man who has such a hero for an uncle 
may naturally be proud of and partial to him ; and when this 
nephew of the great man would be his heir, likewise, and, bearing 
his name, step also into his imperial shoes, one may reasonably 
look for much affectionate panegyric. “ The Empire was the best 
of empires,” cries the Prince ; and possibly it was ; undoubtedly, 
the Prince thinks it was ; but he is the very last person who would 
convince a man with the proper suspicious impartiality. One re- 
members a certain consultation of politicians which is recorded in 
the Spelling-book ; and the opinion of that patriotic sage who 
averred that, for a real blameless constitution, an impenetrable 
shield for liberty, and cheap defence of nations, there was nothing 
like leather. 

Let us examine some of the Prince’s article. If we may be 



THE CHEAP DEFENCE OF NATIONS. 


A NATIONAL GUARD ON DUTY. 








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NAPOLEON AND HIS SYSTEM 


111 


allowed humbly to express an opinion, his leatlier is not only quite 
insufficient for those vast public purposes for which he destines it, 
but is moreover, and in itself, very had leather. The hides are 
poor, small, unsound slips of skin ; or, to drop this cobbling 
metaphor, the style is not particularly brilliant, the facts not very 
startling, and, as for the conclusions, one may differ with almost 
every one of them. Here is an extract from his first chapter, 
“ On Governments in General ” : — 

“ I speak it with regret, I can see but two governments, at 
this day, which fulfil the mission that Providence has confided to 
them ; they are the two colossi at the end of the world ; one at 
the extremity of the Old World, the other at the extremity of the 
New. Whilst our old European centre is as a volcano, consmning 
itself in its crater, the two nations of the East and the West march, 
without hesitation, towards perfection; the one under the will of 
a single individual, the other under liberty. 

“ Providence has confided to the United States of North America 
the task of peopling and civilising that immense territory which 
stretches from the Atlantic to the South Sea, and from the North 
Pole to the Equator. The Government, which is only a simple 
administration, has only hitherto been called upon to put in practice 
the old adage, Laissez faire, laissez passer, in order to favour that 
irresistible instinct which pushes the people of America to the west. 

“ In Russia it is to the imperial dynasty that is owing all the 
vast progress which, in a century and a half, has rescued that empire 
from barbarism. The imperial power must contend against all the 
ancient prejudices of our old Europe : it must centralise, as far as 
possible, all the powers of the State in the hands of one person, 
in order to destroy the abuses which the feudal and communal 
franchises have served to perpetuate. The last alone can hope to 
receive from it the improvements which it expects. 

“ But thou, France of Henry IV., of Louis XIV., of Carnot, of 
Napoleon — thou, who wert always for the West of Europe the 
source of progress, who possessest in thyself the two great pillars 
of empire, the genius for the arts of peace and the genius of war 
— hast thou no further mission to fulfill Wilt thou never cease 
to waste thy force and energies in intestine struggles? No; such 
cannot be thy destiny : the day will soon come, when, to govern 
thee, it will be necessary to understand that thy part is to place 
in all treaties thy sword of Brennus on the side of civilisation.” 

These are the conclusions of the Prince’s remarks upon govern- 
ments in general ; and it must be supposed that the reader is very 


112 


THE PARIS SKETCH BOOK 


little wiser at the end than at the beginning. But two governments 
in the world fulfil their mission : the one government, which is no 
government ; the other, which is a despotism. The duty of France 
is in all treaties to place her sword of Brennus in the scale of 
civilisation. Without quarrelling with the somewhat confused lan- 
guage of the latter proposition, may we ask what, in Heaven’s name, 
is the meaning of all the three What is this epee de Brennus ? 
and how is France to use it 1 Where is the great source of political 
truth, from which, flowing pure, we trace American republicanism, 
in one stream, Russian despotism in another'? Vastly prosperous is 
the great republic, if you will : if dollars and cents constitute happi- 
ness, there is plenty for all : but can any one, who has read -of the 
American doings in the late frontier troubles, and the daily disputes 
on the slave question, praise the Government of the States'? — a 
Government which dares not punish homicide or arson performed 
before its very eyes, and which the pirates of Texas and the pirates 
of Canada can brave at their will '? There is no government, but a 
prosperous anarchy ; as the Prince’s other favourite government is a 
prosperous slavery. What, then, is to be the epee de Brennus 
government] Is it to be a mixture of the two *? “ Society,” writes 

the Prince axiomatically, “ contains in itself two principles — the 
one of progress and immortality, the other of disease and disorganisa- 
tion.” No doubt; and as the one tends towards liberty, so the 
other is only to be cured by order : and then, mth a singular felicity. 
Prince Louis picks us out a couple of governments, in one of which 
the common regulating power is as notoriously too weak, as it is in 
the other too strong, and talks in rapturous terms of the manner in 
which they fulfil their “ providential mission ” ! 

From these considerations on things in general, the Prince con- 
ducts us to Napoleon in particular, and enters largely into a discus- 
sion of the merits of the Imperial system. Our author speaks of 
the Emperor’s advent in the following grandiose way : — 

“ Napoleon, on arriving at the public stage, saw that his part 
was to be the testamentary executor of the Revolution. The de- 
structive fire of parties was extinct; and when the Revolution, 
dying, but not vanquished, delegated to Napoleon the accomplisli- 
ment of her last will, she said to him, ‘ Establish upon solid bases 
the principal result of my efforts. Unite divided Frenchmen. 
Defeat feudal Europe that is leagued against me. Cicatrise my 
wounds. Enlighten the nations. Execute that in width, which I 
have had to perform in depth. Be for Europe what I have been 
for France. And, even if you must water the tree of civilisation 
with your blood — if you must see your projects misunderstood, and 


, NAPOLEON AND HIS SYSTEM 113 

your sons without a country, wandering over the face of the eartli, 
never abandon the sacred cause of the French people. Ensure its 
triumph by all the means which genius can discover and humanity 
approve.’ 

“ This grand mission Napoleon performed to the end. His 
task was difficult. He had to place u])on new principles a society 
still boiling with hatred and revenge ; and to use, for building 
uj), the same instruments which had been employed for pulling 
down. 

“ The common lot of every new truth that arises, is to wound 
rather than to convince — rather than to gain proselytes, to awaken 
fear. For, oppressed as it long has been, it rushes forward with 
additional force ; having to encounter obstacles, it is compelled to 
combat them, and overthrow them ; until, at length, comprehended 
and adopted by the generality, it becomes the basis of new social 
order. 

“ Liberty will follow the same march as the Christian religion. 
Armed with death from the ancient society of Rome, it for a long 
while excited the hatred and fear of the people. At last, by force 
of martyrdoms and persecutions, the religion of Christ penetrated 
into the conscience and the soul ; it soon had kings and armies at 
its orders, and Constantine and Charlemagne bore it triumphant 
throughout Europe. Religion then laid down her arms of war. It 
laid open to all the principles of peace and order which it con- 
tained; it became the prop of Government, as it was the organising 
element of society. Thus will it be with liberty. In 1793 it 
frightened people and sovereigns alike ; then, having clothed itself 
in a milder garb, it insinuated itself everywhere in the train of 
mir hattalions. In 1815 all parties adopted its flag, and armed 
themselves with its moral force — covered themselves with its 
colours. The adoption was not sincere, and liberty was so on 
obliged to reassume its warlike accoutrements. With the contest 
their fears returned. Let us hope that they will soon cease, and 
that liberty will soon resume her peaceful standards, to quit them 
no more. 

“The Emperor Napoleon contributed more than any one else 
towards accelerating the reign of liberty, by saving the moral 
influence of the Revolution, and diminishing the fears which it 
imposed. Without the Consulate and the Empire, the Revolution 
would have been only a grand drama, leaving grand revolutions but 
no traces : the Revolution would have been drowned in the counter- 
revolution. The contrary, however, was the case. Napoleon rooted 
the Revolution in France, and introduced, throughout Europe, the 
principal benefits of the crisis of 1789. To use his own words, ‘ He 


114 


THE PARIS SKETCH BOOK 


purified the Revolution, he confirmed kings, and ennobled people.’ 
He purified the Revolution in separating the truths which it con- 
tained from the passions that, during its delirium, disfigured it. He 
ennobled the people in giving them the consciousness of their force, 
and those institutions which raise men in their own eyes. The 
Emperor may be considered as the Messiah of the new ideas ; for — 
and we must confess it — in the moments immediately succeeding a 
social revolution, it is not so essential to put rigidly into practice 
all the propositions resulting from the new theory, but to become 
master of the regenerative genius, to identify one’s self with the senti- 
ments of the people, and boldly to direct them towards the desired 
point. To accomplish such a task your fibre should respond to 
that of the peo^fie, as the Emperor said j you should feel like it, 
your interests should be so intimately raised with its own, that you 
should vanquish or fall together.” 

Let us take breath after these big phrases, — grand round figures 
of speech, — which, when put together, amount, like certain other 
combinations of round figures, to exactly 0. We shall not stop 
to argue the merits and demerits of Prince Louis’s notable com- 
parison between the Cliristian religion and the Imperial-revolu- 
tionary system. There are many blunders in the above extract 
as we read it; blundering metaphors, blundering arguments, and 
blundering assertions; but this is sirrely the grandest blunder of 
all ; and one wonders at the blindness of the legislator and historian 
who can advance such a parallel. And what are we to say of the 
legacy of the dying Revolution to Napoleon? Revolutions do not 
die, and, on their deathbeds, making fine speeches, hand over their 
property to young officers of artillery. We have all read the 
history of his rise. The constitution of the year III. was carried. 
Old men of the Montagne, disguised royalists, Paris sections, 
Pittetcobourg, above all, with his money-bags, thought that here 
was a fine opportunity for a revolt, and opposed the new constitu- 
tion in arms : the new constitution had knowledge of a young officer, 
who would not hesitate to defend its cause, and who effectually beat 
the majority. The tale may be found in every account of the 
Revolution, and the rest of his story need not be told. We know 
every step that he took : we know how, by doses of cannon-balls 
promptly administered, he cured the fever of the sections — that 
fever which another camp-physician (Menou) declined to prescribe 
for ; we know how he abolished the Directory ; and how the Con- 
sulship came ; and then the Empire ; and then the disgrace, exile, 
and lonely death. Has not all this been written by historians in 
all tongues ? — by memoir-writing pages, chamberlains, marshals, 


NAPOLEON AND HIS SYSTEM 


115 


lacqueys, secretaries, contemporaries, and ladies of honour 1 Not 
a word of miracle is there in all this narration ; not a word of 
celestial missions, or political Messiahs. From Napoleon’s rise to 
his fall, the bayonet marches alongside of him ; now he points it 
at the tails of the scampering “five hundred,” — now he charges 
with it across the bloody planks of Areola — now he flies before it 
over the fatal plain of Waterloo. 

Unwilling, however, as he may be to grant that there are any 
spots in the character of his hero’s government, the Prince is, never- 
theless, obliged to allow that such existed ; that the Emperor’s 
manner of rule w^as a little more abrupt and dictatorial than might 
possibly be agreeable. For this the Prince has always an answer 
ready — it is the same poor one that Napoleon uttered a million of 
times to his companions in exile — the excuse of necessity. He would 
have been very liberal, but that the people were not fit for it ; or 
that the cursed war prevented him — or any other reason why. His 
first duty, however, says his apologist, was to form a general union 
of Frenchmen, and he set about his plan in this wise : — 

“ Let us not forget, that all which Napoleon undertook, in order 
to create a general fusion, he performed without renouncing the 
principles of the Revolution. He recalled the emigrh, without 
touching upon the law by which their goods had been confiscated 
and sold as public property. He re-established the Catholic reli- 
gion at the same time that he proclaimed the liberty of conscience, 
and endowed equally the ministers of all sects. He caused him- 
self to be consecrated by the Sovereign Pontiff, without conceding 
to the Pope’s demand any of the liberties of the Gallican Church. 
He married a daughter of the Emperor of Austria, without abandon- 
ing any of the rights of France to the conquests she had made. He 
re-established noble titles, without attaching to them any privileges 
or prerogatives, and these titles were conferred on all ranks, on all 
services, on all professions. Under the Empire all idea of caste was 
destroyed ; no man ever thought of vaunting his pedigree — no man 
ever was asked how he was born, but what he had done. 

“ The first quality of a people which aspires to liberal govern- 
ment is respect to the law. Now, a law has no other power than 
lies in the interest which each citizen has to defend or to contravene 
it. In order to make a people respect the law, it was necessary that 
it should be executed in the interest of all, and should consecrate 
the principle of equality in all its extension. It was necessary to 
restore the prestige with which the Government had been formerly 
invested, and to make the principles of the Revolution take root 
in the public manners. At the commencement of a new society, it 


116 


THE PARIS SKETCH BOOK 


is the legislator who makes or corrects the manners ; later, it is the 
manners which make the law, or preserve it, from age to age intact.” 

Some of these fusions are amusing. No man in the Empire was 
asked how he was born, but what he had done ; and, accordingly, 
as a man’s actions were sufficient to illustrate him, tlie Emperor 
took care to make a host of new title-bearers, princes, dukes, barons, 
and what not, whose rank has descended to their children. He 
married a princess of Austria ; but, for all that, did not abandon 
his conquests — perhaps not actually ; but he abandoned his allies, 
and, eventually, his whole kingdom. Who does not recollect his 
answer to the Poles, at tlie commencement of the Russian campaign ? 
But for Napoleon’s imperial father-in-law, Poland would have been 
a kingdom, and his race, perhaps, imperial still. Wliy was he to 
fetch this princess out of Austria to make heirs for his throne ? 
Why did not the man of the people marry a girl of the people ? 
Why must he have a Pope to crown him — half-a-dozen kings for 
brothers, and a bevy of aides-de-camp dressed out like so many 
mountebanks from Astley’s, with dukes’ coronets, and grand blue 
velvet marshals’ blitons? We have repeatedly his words for it. He 
wanted to create an aristocracy — another acknowledgment on his 
part of the Republican dilemma — another apology for the revolu- 
tionary blunder. To keep the Republic within bounds, a despotism 
is necessary ; to rally round the despotism, an aristocracy must be 
created ; and for what have we been labouring all this while ? for 
what have bastiles been battered down, and kings’ heads hurled, as 
a gage of battle, in the face of armed Europe ? To have a Duke of 
Otranto instead of a Duke de la Tr^mouille, and Emperer Stork in 
place of King Log. 0 lame conclusion ! Is the blessed Revolution 
which is prophesied for us in England only to end in establishing 
a Prince Fergus O’Connor, or a Cardinal Wade, or a Duke Daniel 
Whittle Harvey ? Great as those patriots are, we love them better 
under their simple family names, and scorn titles and coronets. 

At present, in France, the delicate matter of titles seems to be 
better arranged, any gentleman, since the Revolution, being free to 
adopt any one he may fix upon ; and it appears that the Crown no 
longer confers any patents of nobility, but contents itself with saying, 
as in the case of M. de Pontois, the other day, “ Le Roi trouve 
convenable that you take the title of,” &c. 

To execute the legacy of the Revolution, then ; to fulfil his 
providential mission ; to keep his place, — in other words, for the 
simplest are always the best, — to keep his place, and to keep his 
Government in decent order, the Emperor was obliged to estab- 
lish a military despotism, to re-establish honours and titles ; it was 


NAPOLEON AND HIS SYSTEM 


117 


necessary, as the Prince confesses, to restore the old prestige of the 
Government, in order to make the people respect it ; and he adds — 
a truth which one hardly would expect from him, — “ At the com- 
mencement of a new society, it is the legislator who makes and 
corrects the manners ; later, it is the manners which preserve the 
laws.” Of course, and here is the great risk that all revolutionising 
people run — they must tend to despotism ; “ they must personify 
tliemselves in a man,” is the Prince’s phrase : and according as 
is his temperament or disposition — according as he is a Cromwell, 
a Washington, or a Napoleon — the Revolution becomes tyranny or 
freedom, prospers or falls. 

Somewhere in the St.' Helena memorials, Napoleon reports a 
message of his to the Pope. “ Tell the Pope,” he says to an arch- 
bishop, “to remember that I have six hundred thousand armed 
Frenchmen, qui marcheront avec moi, p>our moi^ et comme moir 
And this is the legacy of the Revolution, the advancement of 
freedom ! A hundred volumes of imperial special pleading will 
not avail against such a speech as this — one so insolent, and at the 
same time so humiliating, which gives unwittingly the whole of 
the Emperor’s progress, strength, and weakness. The six hundred 
thousand armed Frenchmen were used up, and the whole fabric 
falls ; the six hundred thousand are reduced to sixty thousand, and 
straightway all the rest of the fine imperial scheme vanishes : the 
miserable senate, so crawling and abject but now, becomes of a 
sudden endowed with a wondrous independence ; the miserable sham 
nobles, sham empress, sham kings, dukes, princes, chamberlains, 
pack up their plumes and embroideries, pounce upon what money 
and plate they can lay their hands on, and when the Allies appear 
before Paris, when for courage and .manliness there is yet hope, 
when with fierce marches hastening to the relief of his capital, 
bursting through ranks upon ranks of the enemy, and crushing or 
scattering them from the path of his swift and victorious despair, 
the Emperor at last is at liome, — where are the great dignitaries 
and the lieutenant-generals of the Empire % Where is Maria Louisa, 
the Empress Eagle, with her little callow King of Rome ? Is she 
going to defend her nest and her eaglet % Not she. Empress-Queen, 
lieutenant-general, and court dignitaries are off on the wings of all 
the winds— sunt, they are away with the money-bags, 
and Louis Stanislas Xavier rolls into the palace of his fathers. 

With regard to Napoleon’s excellences as an administrator, a 
legislator, a constructor of public works, and a skilful financier, his 
nephew speaks with much diffuse praise, and few persons, we sup- 
jiose, will be disposed to contradict him. Whether the Emperor 
composed his famous code, or borrowed it, is of little importance ; 


118 


THE PARIS SKETCH BOOK 


but he established it, and made the law equal for every man in 
France except one. His vast public works and vaster wars were 
carried on without new loans or exorbitant taxes ; it was only the 
blood and liberty of the people that were taxed, and we shall want 
a better advocate than Prince Louis to show us that these were not 
most unnecessarily and lavishly thrown away. As for the former 
and material improvements, it is not necessary to confess here that 
a despotic energy can effect such far more readily than a Govern- 
ment of which the strength is diffused in many conflicting parties. 
No doubt, if we could create a despotical governing machine, a steam 
autocrat, — passionless, untiring, , and supreme, — we should advance 
farther, and live more at ease than under any other form of govern- 
ment. Ministers might enjoy their pensions and follow their own 
devices ; Lord John might compose histories or tragedies at his 
leisure, and Lord Palmerston, instead of racking his brains to write 
leading articles for Cupid, might crown his locks with flowers, and 
sing epiora pLovvov, his natural Anacreontics. But, alas ! not so : 
if the despotic Government has its good side. Prince Louis Napoleon 
must acknowledge that it has its bad, and it is for this that the 
civilised world is compelled to substitute for it something more 
orderly and less capricious. Good as the Imperial Government 
might have been, it must be recollected, too, that since its first fall, 
both the Emperor and his admirer and would-be successor have had 
their chance of re-establishing it. “ Fly from steeple to steeple ” 
the eagles of the former did actually, and according to promise perch 
for a while on the towers of Notre Dame. We know the event : if 
the fate of war declared against the Emperor, the country declared 
against him too ; and, with old Lafayette for a mouthpiece, the 
representatives of the nation did, in a neat speech, pronounce them- 
selves in permanence, but spoke no more of the Emperor than if he 
had never been. Thereupon the Emperor proclaimed his son tlie 
Emperor Napoleon II. “ L’Empereur est mort, vive I’Empereur ! ” 
shouted Prince Lucien. Psha ! not a soul echoed the words : the 
play was played, and as for old Lafayette and his “ permanent ” 
representatives, a corporal with a hammer nailed up the door of 
their spoating-club, and once more Louis Stanislas Xavier rolled 
back to the lx)som of his people. 

In like manner Napoleon HI. returned from exile, and made 
his appearance on the frontier. His eagle appeared at Strasburg, 
and from Strasburg advanced to the capital ; but it arrived at Paris 
with a keeper, and in a postchaise ; whence, by the orders of the 
sovereign, it was removed to the American shores, and there 
magnanimously let loose. Who knows, however, how soon it may 
be on the wing again, and what a flight it will take 1 


THE STORY OF MARY ANGEL 


0, my nephew,” said old Father Jacob to me, “and complete 



thy studies at Strasburg : Heaven surely hath ordained 


thee for the ministry in these times of trouble, and my 
excellent friend Schneider will work out the divine intention.” 

Schneider was an old college friend of Uncle Jacob’s, was a 
Benedictine monk, and a man famous for his learning; as for me, 
I was at that time my uncle’s chorister, clerk, and sacristan ; I 
swept the church, chanted the prayers with my shrill treble, and 
swung the great copper incense-pot on Sundays and feasts; and I 
toiled over the Fathers for the other days of the week. 

The old gentleman said that my progress was prodigious, and, 
without vanity, I believe he was right, for I then verily considered 
that praying was my vocation, and not fighting, as I have found 
since. 

You would hardly conceive (said the Captain, swearing a great 
oath) how devout and how learned I was in those days ; I talked 
Latin faster than my own beautiful jmtois of Alsatian French ; I 
could utterly overthrow in argument every Protestant (heretics we 
called them) parson in the neighbourhood, and there was a con- 
founded sprinkling of these unbelievers in our part of the country. 
I prayed half-a-dozen times a day ; I fasted thrice in a week ; and, 
as for penance, I used to scourge my little sides, till they had no 
more feeling than a peg-top : such was the godly life I led at my 
Uncle Jacob’s in the village of Steinbach. 

Our family had long dwelt in this place, and a large farm and a 
pleasant house were then in the possession of another uncle — Uncle 
Edward. He was the youngest of the three sons of my grandfather ; 
but Jacob, the elder, had shown a decided vocation for the Church, 
from, I believe, the age of three, and now was by no means tired of 
it at sixty. My father, who was to have inherited the paternal pro- 
perty, was, as I hear, a terrible scamp and scapegrace, quarrelled with 
his family, and disappeared altogether, living and dying at Paris ; 
so far we knew through my mother, who came, poor woman, with 
me, a child of six months, on lier bosom, was refused all shelter by 


120 THE PARIS SKETCH BOOK 

my grandfather, but was housed and kindly cared for by my good 
Uncle Jacob. 

Here she lived for about seven years, and the old gentleman, 
when she died, wept over her grave a great deal more than 
I did, who was then too young to mind anything but toys or 
sweetmeats. 

During this time my grandfather was likewise carried off : he 
left, as I said, the property to his son Edward, with a small 
proviso in his will that something should be done for me, his 
grandson. 

Edward was himself a widower, with one daughter, Mary, about 
three years older than I, and certainly she was the dearest little 
treasure with which Providence ever blessed a miserly father ; by 
the time she was fifteen, five farmers, three lawyers, twelve Protestant 
parsons, and a lieutenant of Dragoons had made her offers ; it must 
not be denied that she was an heiress as well as a beauty, which, 
perhaps, had something to do with the love of these gentlemen. 
However, Mary declared that she intended to live single, turned 
away her lovers one after another, and devoted herself to the care 
of her father. 

Uncle Jacob was as fond of her as he was of any saint or martyr. 
As for me, at the mature age of twelve I had made a kind of divinity 
of her, and when we sang “Ave Maria” on Sundays I could not 
refrain from turning to her, where she knelt, blushing and praying 
and looking like an angel, as she was. Besides her beauty, Mary 
had a thousand good qualities ; she could play better on the harpsi- 
chord, she could dance more lightly, she could make better pickles 
and puddings, than any girl in Alsace ; there was not a want or a 
fancy of the old hunks her father, or a wish of mine or my uncle’s, 
that she would not gratify if she could ; as for herself, the sweet 
soul had neither wants nor wishes except to see us happy. 

I could talk to you for a year of all the pretty kindnesses that 
she would do for me ; how, when she found me of early mornings 
among my books, her presence “ would cast a light upon the day ; ” 
how she used to smooth and fold my little surplice, and embroider me 
caps and gowns for high feast-days ; how she used to bring flowers 
for the altar, and who could deck it so well as she '? But sentiment 
does not come glibly from under a grizzled moustache, so I will drop 
it, if you please. 

Amongst other favours she showed me, Mary used to be particu- 
larly fond of kissing me : it was a thing I did not so much value in 
those days ; but I found that the more I grew alive to the extent of 
the benefit, the less she would condescend to confer it on me ; till, 
at last, when I was about fourteen, she discontinued it altogether. 





MARY ANCEL 









THE STORY OF MARY ANGEL 


121 


of her own wish at least ; only sometimes I used to be rude, and 
take what she had now become so mighty unwilling to give. 

I was engaged in a contest of this sort one day with Mary, 
when, just as I was about to carry off a kiss from her cheek, I 
w^as saluted with a staggering slap on my own, which was be- 
stowed by Uncle Edward, and sent me reeling some yards down the 
garden. 

The old gentleman, whose tongue was generally as close as his 
jnirse, now poured forth a flood of eloquence which quite astonished 
me. I did not think that so much was to be said on any subject 
as he managed to utter on one, and that was abuse of me ; he stamped, 
he swore, he screamed ; and then, from complimenting me, he turned 
to Mary, and saluted her in a manner equally forcible and significant : 
she, who was very much frightened at the commencement of the 
scene, grew very angry at the coarse words he used, and the wicked 
motives he imputed to her. 

“ The child is but fourteen,” she said ; “he is your own nephew, 
and a candidate for holy orders : — Father, it is a shame that you 
should thus speak of me, your daughter, or of one of his holy 
profession.” 

I did not particularly admire this speech myself, but it had an 
effect on my uncle, and was the cause of the words with which this 
history commences. The old gentleman persuaded his brother that 
I must be sent to Strasburg and there kept until my studies for 
the Church were concluded. I w^as furnished with a letter to my 
uncle’s old college chum. Professor Schneider, who was to instruct 
me in theology and Greek. 

I was not sorry to see Strasburg, of the wonders of which I 
had heard so much ; but felt very loth as the time drew near when 
I must quit my pretty cousin and my good old uncle. Mary and I 
managed, however, a parting walk, in which a number of tender 
things were said on both sides. I am told that you Englishmen 
consider it cowardly to cry; as for me, I wept and roared inces- 
santly : when Mary squeezed me, for the last time, the tears came 
out of me as if I had been neither more nor less than a great wet 
sponge. My cousin’s eyes were stoically dry; her ladyship had a 
part to play, and it would have been wrong for her to be in love 
with a young chit of fourteen — so she carried herself with perfect 
coolness, as if there was nothing the matter. I should not have 
known that she cared for me, had it not been for a letter "which 
she wrote me a month afterwards — then^ nobody was by, and the 
consequence was that the letter was half washed away with her 
w'eeping : if she had used a watering-pot the thing could not have 
been better done. 


122 


THE PARIS SKETCH BOOK 


Well, I arrived at Strasbiirg — a dismal, old-fashioned, rickety 
town in those days — and straightway presented myself and letter at 
Schneider’s door ; over it was written — 

“comit6 de salut public.” 

Would you believe if? I was so ignorant a young fellow, that 
I had no idea of the meaning of the words ; however, I entered the 
citizen’s room without fear, and sat down in his antechamber until 
I could be admitted to see him. 

Here I found very few indications of his reverence’s profession ; 
the walls were hung round with portraits of Robespierre, Marat, 
and the like ; a great bust of Mirabeau, mutilated, with the word 
Traitre underneath ; lists and Republican proclamations, tobacco- 
pipes, and fire-arms. At a deal table, stained with grease and wine, 
sat a gentleman with a huge pigtail dangling down to that part of 
his person which immediately succeeds his back, and a red nightcap 
containing a tricolour cockade as large as a pancake. He was 
smoking a short pipe, reading a little book, and sobbing as if his 
heart would break. Every now and then he would make brief 
remarks upon the personages or the incidents of his book, by which 
I could judge that he was a man of the very keenest sensibilities — 
“ Ah, brigand ! ” “0 malheureuse ! ” “0 Charlotte, Charlotte ! ” 

The work which this gentleman was perusing is called “The 
Sorrows of Werter”; it was all the rage in those days, and my 
friend was only following the fashion. I asked him if I could see 
Father Schneider. He turned towards me a hideous pimpled face, 
which I dream of now at forty years’ distance. 

“ Father who ? ” said he. “ Do you imagine that Citizen 
Schneider has not thrown off the absurd mummery of priesthood ? 
If you were a little older you would go to prison for calling him 
Father Schneider — many a man has died for less ! ” And he pointed 
to a picture of a guillotine, which was hanging in the room. 

I was in amazement. 

“ What is he 1 Is he not a teacher of Greek, an abb^ a monk 
until monasteries were abolished, the learned editor of the songs of 
Anacreon ? ” 

“ He was all this,” replied my grim friend ; “ he is now a 
Member of the Committee of Public Safety, and would think no 
more of ordering your head off than of drinking this tumbler of 
beer.” 

He swallowed, himself, the frothy liquid, and then proceeded to 
give me the history of the man to whom my uncle had sent me for 
instruction. 


THE STORY OF MARY ANCEL 123 

Sclineider was born in 1756 : was a stiulent at Wurzburg, and 
afterwards entered a convent, where he remained nine years. He 
liere became distinguished for his learning and his talents as a 
preacher, and became chaplain to Duke Charles of Wiirtemberg. 
The doctrines of the Illuminati began about this time to spread in 
Germany, and Schneider speedily joined the sect. He had been a 
professor of Greek at Cologne ; and being compelled, on account of 
his irregularity, to give up his chair, he came to Strasburg at the 
commencement of the French Revolution, and acted for some time a 
principal part as a revolutionary agent at Strasburg. 

[“ Heaven knows what would have happened to me had I 
continued long under his tuition ! ” said the Captain. “ I owe 
the preservation of my morals entirely to my entering the army. 
A man, sir, who is a soldier has very little time to be wicked ; 
except in the case of a siege and the sack of a town, when a little 
licence can offend nobody.”] 

By the time that my friend had concluded Schneider’s biography, 
we had grown tolerably intimate, and I imparted to him (with that 
ingenuousness so remarkable in youth) my whole history — my course 
of studies, my pleasant country life, the names and qualities of my 
dear relations, and my occupations in the vestry before religion was 
abolished by order of the Republic. In the course of my speech I 
recurred so often to the name of my cousin Mary, that the gentle- 
man could not fail to perceive what a tender place she had in 
my heart. 

Then we reverted to “ The Sorrows of Werter,” and discussed 
the merits of that sublime performance. Although I had before 
felt some misgivings about my new acquaintance, my heart now 
quite yearned towards him. He talked about love and sentiment 
in a manner which made me recollect that I was in love myself ; 
and you know that when a man is in that condition, his taste is 
not very refined, any maudlin trash of prose or verse appearing 
sublime to him, provided it correspond, in some degree, with his 
own situation. 

“ Candid youth ! ” cried my unknown, “ I love to hear thy 
innocent story and look on thy guileless face. ' There is, alas ! 
so much of the contrary in this world, so much terror and crime 
and blood, that we who mingle with it are only too glad to forget 
it. Would that we could shake off our cares as men, and be boys, 
as thou art, again ! ” 

Here my friend began to weep once more, and fondly shook 
my hand. I blessed my stars that I had, at the very outset of 
my career, met with one who was so likely to aid me. What a 
slanderous world it is ! thought I ; the people in our village call 


124 


THE PARIS SKETCH BOOK 


these Republicans wicked and bloody-minded ; a lamb could not 
be more tender than this sentimental bottle-nosed gentleman ! Tlie 
worthy man then gave me to understand that he held a place- 
under Government. I was busy in endeavouring to discover what 
his situation might be, when the door of the next apartment opened, 
and Schneider made his appearance. 

At first he did not notice me, but he advanced to my new 
acquaintance, and gave him, to my astonishment, something very 
like a blow. 

“You drunken talking fool,” he said, “you are always after 
your time. Fourteen people are cooling their heels yonder, waiting 
until you have finished your beer and your sentiment ! ” 

My friend slunk muttering out of the room. 

“That fellow,” said Schneider, turning to me, “is our public 
executioner : a capital hand too if he would but keep decent time ; 
but the brute is always drunk, and blubbering over ‘ The Sorrows 
of Werter ’ ! ” 

I know not whether it was his old friendship for my uncle, 
or my proper merits, which won the heart of this the sternest 
ruffian of Robespierre’s crew ; but certain it is, that he became 
strangely attached to me, and kept me constantly about his person. 
As for the priesthood and the Greek, they were of course very soon 
out of the question. The Austrians were on our frontier ; every 
day brought us accounts of battles won ; and the youth of Stras- 
burg, and of all France, indeed, were bursting with military ardour. 
As for me, I shared the general mania, and speedily mounted a 
cockade as large as that of my friend the executioner. 

The occupations of this worthy were unremitting. St. Just, 
who had come down from Paris to preside over our town, executed 
the laws and the aristocrats with terrible punctuality ; and Schneider 
used to make country excursions in search of offenders with this 
fellow, as a provost-marshal, at his back. In the meantime, having 
entered my sixteenth year, and being a proper lad of my age, I 
had joined a regiment of cavalry, and was scampering now after 
the Austrians who menaced us, and now threatening the emigrh^ 
who were banded at Coblentz. My love for my dear cousin in- 
creased as my whiskers grew ; and when I was scarcely seventeen, 
I thought myself man enougli to marry her, and to cut the throat 
of any one who should venture to say me nay. 

I need not tell you that during my absence at Strasburg, great 
changes had occurred in our little village, and somewhat of the 
revolutionary rage had penetrated even to that quiet and distant 
place. The hideous “Fete of the Supreme Being” had been 


THE STORY OF MARY ANGEL 


125 


celebrated at Paris; the practice of our ancient religion was for- 
bidden; its professors were most of them in concealment, or in 
exile, or had expiated on the scaffold their crime of Christianity. 
In our poor village my uncle’s church was closed, and he, him- 
self, an inmate in my brother’s house, only owing his safety to 
his great popularity among his former flock and the influence of 
Edward Ancel. 

The latter had taken in the Revolution a somewhat prominent 
part; that is, he had engaged in many contracts for tlie army, 
attended the clubs regularly, corresponded with the authorities of 
his department, and was loud in his denunciations of the aristocrats 
in the neighbourhood. But owing, perhaps, to the German origin 
of the peasantry, and their quiet and rustic lives, the revolutionary 
fury which prevailed in the cities had hardly reached the country 
people. The occasional visit of a commissary from Paris or Stras- 
burg served to keep the flame alive, and to remind the rural swains 
of the existence of a Republic in France. 

Now and then, when I could gain a week’s leave of absence, I 
returned to the village, and was received with tolerable politeness 
by my uncle, and with a warmer feeling by his daughter. 

I won’t describe to you the progress of our love, or the wrath 
of my Uncle Edward when he discovered that it still continued. 
He swore and he stormed ; he locked Mary into her chamber, and 
vowed that he would withdraw the allowance he made me, if ever 
I ventured near her. His daughter, he said, should never marry 
a hopeless penniless subaltern ; and Mary declared she would not 
marry without his consent. What had I to do ? — to despair and 
to leave her. As for my poor Uncle Jacob, he had no counsel to 
give me, and, indeed, no spirit left : his little church was turned 
into a stable, his surplice torn off his shoulders, and he was only 
too lucky in keeping his head on them. A bright thought struck 
him : suppose you were to ask the advice of my old friend Schneider 
regarding this marriage? he has ever been your friend, and may 
help you now as before. 

(Here the Captain paused a little.) You may fancy (continued 
he) that it was droll advice of a reverend gentleman like Uncle 
Jacob to counsel me in this manner, and to bid me make friends 
with such a murderous cut-throat as Schneider ; but we thought 
nothing of it in those days ; guillotining was as common as dancing, 
and a man was only thought the better patriot the more severe he 
might be. I departed forthwith to Strasburg, and requested the 
vote and interest of the Citizen President of the Committee of 
Public Safety. 

He heard me with a great deal of attention. I described to 


126 


THE PARIS SKETCH BOOK 


him most minutely the circumstance, expatiated upon the charms 
of my dear Mary, and painted her to him from head to foot. Her 
golden hair and her bright blushing cheeks, her slim waist and 
her tripping tiny feet ; and furthermore, I added that she pos- 
sessed a fortune which ought, by rights, to be mine, but for the 
miserly old father. “ Curse him for an aristocrat ! ” concluded I, 
in my wrath. 

As I had been discoursing about Mary’s charms Schneider 
listened with much complacency and attention : when I spoke 
about her fortune, his interest redoubled ; and when I called her 
father an aristocrat, the worthy ex- Jesuit gave a grin of satisfac- 
tion, which was really quite terrible. 0 fool that I was to trust 
him so far ! 

The very same evening an officer waited upon me with the 
following note from St. Just : — 

“ Strasburg : Fifth year of the Republic one and 
indivisible, 11 Ventdse. 

“The citizen Pierre Ancel is to leave Strasburg within two 
hours, and to carry the enclosed despatches to the President of 
the Committee of Public Safety at Paris. The necessary leave 
of absence from his military duties has been provided. Instant 
punishment will follow the slightest delay on the road. 

“ Salut et Fraternity.” 

There was no choice but obedience, and off I sped on my weary 
way to the capital. 

As I was riding out of the Paris gate I met an equipage which 
I knew to be that of Schneider. The ruffian smiled at me as I 
passed, and wished me a hon voyage. Behind his chariot came a 
curious machine, or cart; a great basket, three stout poles, and 
several planks, all painted red, were lying in this vehicle, on the top 
of which was seated my friend with the big cockade. It was the 
portable guillotine which Schneider always carried with him on his 
travels. The hourreau was reading “ The Sorrows of Werter,” and 
looked as sentimental as usual. 

I will not speak of my voyage in order to relate to you 
Schneider’s. My story had awakened the wretch’s curiosity and 
avarice, and he was determined that such a prize as I had shown 
my cousin to be should fall into no hands but his own. No sooner, 
in fact, had I quitted his room than he procured tlie order for my 
absence, and was on the way to Steinbach as I met him. 


THE STORY OF MARY ANGEL 127 

The journey is not a very long one ; and on the next day my 
Uncle Jacob was surprised by receiving a message that the Citizen 
Schneider was in the village, and was coming to greet his old friend. 
Old Jacob was in an ecstasy, for he longed to see his college 
acquaintance, and he hoped also that Schneider had come into that 
part of the country upon the marriage-business of your humble 
servant. Of course Mary was summoned to give her best dinner, 
and wear her best frock ; and her father made ready to receive the 
new State dignitary. 

Schneider’s carriage speedily rolled into the courtyard, and 
Schneider’s cart followed, as a matter of course. The ex-priest only 
entered the house ; his companion remaining with the horses to 
dine in private. There was a most touching meeting between him 
and J acob. They talked over their old college pranks and successes ; 
they capped Greek verses, and quoted ancient epigrams upon their 
tutors, who had been dead since the Seven Years’ War. Mary 
declared it was quite touching to listen to the merry friendly talk of 
these two old gentlemen. 

After the conversation had continued for a time in this strain, 
Schneider drew up all of a sudden, and said, quietly, that he had 
come on particular and unpleasant business — hinting about trouble- 
some times, spies, evil reports, and so forth. Then lie called Uncle 
Edward aside, and had with him a long and earnest conversation : 
so Jacob went out and talked with Schneider’s friend; they 
speedily became very intimate, for the ruffian detailed all the 
circumstances of his interview with me. When he returned into 
the house, some time after this pleasing colloquy, he found the tone 
of the society strangely altered. Edward Ancel, pale as a sheet, 
trembling, and crying for mercy ; poor Mary weeping ; and Schneider 
pacing energetically about the apartment, raging about the rights 
of man, the punishment of traitors, and the one and indivisible 
Republic. 

“ Jacob,” he said, as my uncle entered the room, “ I was willing, 
for the sake of our old friendship, to forget the crimes of your 
brother. He is a known and dangerous aristocrat ; he holds com- 
munications with the enemy on the frontier; he is a possessor of 
great and ill-gotten wealth, of which he has plundered the Republic. 
Do you know,” said he, turning to Edward Ancel, “where the 
least of these crimes, or the mere suspicion of them, would lead 
you ? ” 

Poor Edward sat trembling in his chair, and answered not a 
word. He knew full well how quickly, in this dreadful time, 
punisliment followed suspicion ; and though guiltless of all treason 
with the «nemy, perhaps he was aware that, in certain contracts 


128 THE PAKIS SKETCH BOOK 

with the Government, he had taken to himself a more than patriotic 
share of profit. 

“Do you know,” resumed Schneider, in a voice of thunder, “for 
what purpose I came hither, and by whom I am accompanied 'I I 
am the administrator of the justice of the Republic. The life of 
yourself and your family is in my hands : yonder man, who follows 
me, is the executor of the law ; he has rid the nation of hundreds of 
wretches like yoirrself. A single word from me, and your doom is 
sealed without hope, and your last hour is come. Ho ! Gri^goire ! ” 
shouted he ; “ is all ready ? ” 

Gr^goire replied from the court, “ I can put up the machine in 
half-an-hour. Shall I go down to the village and call the troops and 
the law people ” 

“Do you hear himD’ said Schneider. “The guillotine is in 
the courtyard ; your name is on my list, and I have witnesses to 
prove your crime. Have you a word in your defence 1 ” 

Not a word came ; the old gentleman was dumb ; but his 
daughter, who did not give way to his terror, spoke for him. 

“You cannot, sir,” said she, “ although you say it, feel that my 
father is guilty ; you would not have entered our house thus alone 
if you had thought it. You threaten him in this manner because 
you have something to ask and to gain from us : what is it, citizen '? 
— tell us how much you value our lives, and what sum we are to 
pay for our ransom ” 

“ Sum ! ” said Uncle Jacob ; “he does not want money of us : 
my old friend, my college chum, does not come hither to drive 
bargains with anybody belonging to Jacob Ancel ? ” 

“ Oh no, sir, no, you can’t want money of us,” shrieked Edward ; 
“ we are the poorest people of the village : ruined. Monsieur 
Schneider, ruined in the cause of the Republic.” 

“ Silence, father,” said my brave Mary ; “ this man wants a 
2 ?rice : he comes with his worthy friend yonder, to frighten us, 
not to kill us. If we die, he cannot touch a sou of our money ; 
it is confiscated to the State. Tell us, sir, what is the price of our 
safety 1 ” 

Schneider smiled, and bowed with perfect politeness. 

“Mademoiselle Marie,” he said, “is perfectly correct in her 
surmise. I do not want the life of this poor drivelling old man : 
my intentions are much more peaceable, be assured. It rests 
entirely with this accomplished young lady (whose spirit I like, and 
whose ready wit I admire), whether the business between us shall 
be a matter of love or death. I humbly offer myself. Citizen Ancel, 
as a candidate for the hand of your charming daugliter. Her good- 
ness, her beauty, and the large fortune which I know you intend to 


THE STORY OF MARY ANGEL 129 

give her, would render her a desirable match for the proudest man 
in the Republic, and, I am sure, would make me the happiest.” 

“ Tliis must be a jest. Monsieur Schneider,” said Mary, trembling, 
and turning deadly pale : “ you cannot mean this ; you do not know 
me : you never heard of me until to-day.” 

“Pardon me, belle dame,” replied he; “your cousin Pierre has 
often talked to me of your virtues ; indeed, it was by his special 
suggestion that I made the visit.” 

“It is false ! — it is a base and cowardly lie ! ” exclaimed she (for 
the young lady’s courage was up), — “ Pierre never could have for- 
gotten himself and me so as to offer me to one like you. You come 
here with a lie on your lips — a lie against my father, to swear his 
life away, against my dear cousin’s honour and love. It is useless 
now to deny it : Father, I love Pierre Ancel ; I will marry no other 
but him — no, though our last penny were paid to this man as the 
price of our freedom.” 

Schneider’s only reply to this was a call to his friend Grdgoire. 

“ Send down to the village for the maire and some gendarmes ; 
and tell your people to make ready.” 

“ Shall I put the machine up % ” shouted he of the sentimental 
turn. 

“You hear him,” said Schneider ; “ Marie Ancel, you may 
decide the fate of your father. I shall return in a few hours,” 
concluded he, “ and will then beg to know your decision.” 

The advocate of the rights of man then left the apartment, and 
left the family, as you may imagine, in no very pleasant mood. 

Old Uncle Jacob, during the few minutes which had elapsed in 
the enactment of this strange scene, sat staring wildly at Schneider, 
and holding Mary on his knees : the poor little thing had fled to 
him for protection, and not to her father, who was kneeling almost 
senseless at the window, gazing at the executioner and his hideous 
preparations. The instinct of the poor girl had not failed her ; she 
knew that Jacob was her only protector, if not of her life — Heaven 
bless him ! — of her honour. “ Indeed,” the old man said, in a stout 
voice, “this must never be, my dearest child — you must not marry 
this man. If it be the will of Providence that we fall, we shall 
have at least the thought to console us that we die innocent. Any 
man in France at a time like this would be a coward and traitor if 
he feared to meet the fate of the thousand brave and good who have 
preceded us.” 

“ Who speaks of dying 1 ” said Edward. “ You, brother Jacob ? 
— you would not lay that poor girl’s head on the scaffold, or mine, 
your dear brother’s. You will not let us die, Mary; you will not, 
for a small sacrifice, bring your poor old father into danger % ” 

5 I 


130 


THE PARIS SKETCH BOOK 


Mary made no answer. “ Perhaps,” slie said, “ there is time 
for escape : he is to he here hut in two hours ; in two hours we 
may he safe, in concealment, or on the frontier.” And she rushed 
to the door of the chamher, as if she would have instantly made 
the attempt : two gendarmes were at the door. “We have orders, 
mademoiselle,” they said, “ to allow no one to leave this apartment 
until the return of the Citizen Sclmeider.” 

Alas ! all hope of escape was impossible. Mary became quite 
silent for a while ; she would not speak to Uncle Jacob ; and, in 
reply to her father’s eager questions, she only replied, coldly, that 
she would answer Schneider when he arrived. 

The two dreadful hours passed away only too quickly ; and, 
punctual to his appointment, the ex-monk appeared. Directly he 
entered, Mary advanced to him, and said calmly — 

“ Sir, I could not deceive you if I said that I freely accepted 
the offer which you have made me. I will be your wife ; but I tell 
you that I love another ; and that it is only to save the lives of 
those two old men that I yield my person up to you.” 

Schneider bowed, and said — 

“It is bravely spoken. I like your candour — your beauty. 
As for the love, excuse me for saying that is a matter of total 
indifference. I have no doubt, however, that it will come as soon 
as your feelings in favour of the young gentleman, your cousin, have 
lost their present fervour. Tliat engaging young man has, at present, 
another mistress — Glory. He occupies, I believe, the distinguished 
post of corporal in a regiment which is about to march to — Perpig- 
nan, I believe.” 

It was, in fact. Monsieur Schneider’s polite intention to banish 
me as far as possible from the place of my birth ; and he had, 
accordingly, selected the Spanish frontier as the spot where I was 
to display my future military talents. 

Mary gave no answer to this sneer : she seemed perfectly 
resigned and calm : she only said — 

“ I must make, however, some conditions regarding our proposed 
marriage, which a gentleman of Monsieur Schneider’s gallantry 
cannot refuse.” 

“ Pray command me,” replied the husband-elect. “ Fair lady, 
you know I am your slave.” 

“You occupy a distinguished political rank, citizen representa- 
tive,” said she ; “ and we in our village are likewise known and 
beloved. I should be ashamed, I confess, to wed you here ; for our 
people would wonder at the sudden marriage, and imply that it was 
only by compulsion that I gave you my hand. Let us, then, 
perform this ceremony at Strasburg, before the public authorities of 


THE STORY OF MARY ANGEL 


131 


the city, with the state and solemnity which befits the marriage of 
one of the chief men of the Rejjublic.” 

“ Be it so, madam,” he answered, and gallantly proceeded to 
embrace his bride. 

Mary did not shrink from this ruffian’s kiss ; nor did she reply 
when poor old Jacob, who sat sobbing in a corner, burst out, and 
said — 

“ 0 Mary, Mary, I did not think this of thee ! ” 

“ Silence, brother ! ” hastily said Edward ; “ my good son-in-law 
will pardon your ill-humour.” 

I believe Uncle Edward in his heart was pleased at the notion 
of the marriage ; he only cared for money and rank, and was little 
scrupulous as to the means of obtaining them. 

The matter then was finally arranged; and presently, after 
Schneider had transacted the affairs which brought him into that 
part of the country, the happy bridal party set forward for Stras- 
burg. Uncles Jacob and Edward occupied the back seat of the 
old family carriage, and the young bride and bridegroom (he was 
nearly Jacob’s age) were seated majestically in front. Mary has 
often since talked to me of this dreadful journey. She said she 
wondered at the scrupulous politeness of Schneider during the route ; 
nay, that at another period she could have listened to and admired 
the singular talent of this man, his great learning, his fancy, and 
wit ; but her mind was bent upon other things, and the poor girl 
firmly thought that her last day was come. 

In the meantime, by a blessed chance, I had not ridden three 
leagues from Strasburg, when the officer of a passing troop of a 
cavalry regiment, looking at the beast on which I was mounted, 
was pleased to take a fancy to it, and ordered me, in an authoritative 
tone, to descend, and to give up my steed for the benefit of the 
Republic. I represented to him, in vain, that I was a soldier like 
himself, and the bearer of despatches to Paris. “ Fool ! ” he said ; 

do you think they would send despatches by a man who can ride 
at best but ten leagues a day ? ” And the honest soldier was so 
wroth at my supposed duplicity, that he not only confiscated my 
horse, but my saddle, and the little portmanteau which contained 
the chief part of my worldly goods and treasure. I had nothing for’ 
it but to dismount, and take my way on foot back again to Strasburg. 
I arrived there in the evening, determining the next morning to 
make my case known to the Citizen St. Just ; and though I made 
my entry without a sou, I don’t know what secret exultation I felt 
at again being able to return. 

The antechamber of such a great man as St. Just was, in those 
days, too crowded for an unprotected boy to obtain an early audi- 


132 


THE PARIS SKETCH BOOK 


ence ; two days passed before I could obtain a sight of the friend 
of Robespierre. On the third day, as I was still waiting for the 
interview, I heard a great bustle in the courtyard of the house, and 
looked out with many others at the spectacle. 

A number of men and women, singing epithalamiums, and 
dressed in some absurd imitation of Roman costume, a troop of 
soldiers and gendarmerie, and an immense crowd of the hadauds of 
Strasburg, were surrounding a carriage which then entered into the 
court of the mayoralty. In this carriage, great God ! I saw my 
dear Mary, and Schneider by her side. The truth instantly came 
upon me : the reason for Schneider’s keen inquiries and my abrupt 
dismissal ; but I could not believe that Mary was false to me. I 
had only to look in her face, white and rigid as marble, to see that 
this proposed marriage was not with her consent. 

I fell back in the crowd as the procession entered the great 
room in which I was, and hid my face in my hands : I could not 
look upon her as the wife of another, — upon her so long loved and 
truly — the saint of my childhood — the pride and hope of my youth 
— torn from me for ever, and delivered over to the unholy arms of 
the murderer who stood before me. 

The door of St. Just’s private apartment opened, and he took 
his seat at the table of mayoralty just as Schneider and his cortege 
arrived before it. 

Schneider then said that he came in before the authorities of 
the Republic to espouse the citoyenne Marie Ancel. 

“Is she a minor'?” asked St. Just. 

“ She is a minor, but her father is here to give her away.” 

“ I am here,” said Uncle Edward, coming eagerly forward and 
bowing. “ Edward Ancel, so please you, citizen representative. 
The worthy Citizen Schneider has done me the honour of marrying 
into my family.” 

“ But my father has not told you the terms of the marriage,” 
said Mary, interrupting him, in a loud clear voice. 

Here Schneider seized her hand, and endeavoured to prevent 
her from speaking. Her father turned pale, and cried, “ Stop, 
Mary, stop ! For Heaven’s sake, remember your poor old father’s 
danger ! ” 

‘ Sir, may I speak ? ” 

“ Let the young woman speak,” said St. Just, “ if she have a 
desire to talk.” He did not suspect what would be the purport of 
her story. 

“ Sir,” she said, “two days since the Citizen Schneider entered 
for the first time our house ; and you will fancy that it must be a 
love of very sudden growth which has brought either him or me 


THE STORY OF MARY ANCEL 


133 


before you to-day. He had heard from a person who is now un- 
happily not present of my name and of the wealth which my family 
was said to possess ; and hence arose this mad design concerning 
me. He came into our village with supreme power, an executioner 
at his heels, and the soldiery and authorities of the district entirely 
under his orders. He threatened my father with death if he refused 
to give up his daughter ; and I, who knew that there was no chance 
of escape, except here before you, consented to become his wife. 
My father I know to be innocent, for all his transactions with the 
State have passed through my hands. Citizen representative, I 
demand to be freed from this marriage ; and I charge Schneider as 
a traitor to the Republic, as a man who would have murdered an 
innocent citizen for the sake of private gain.” 

During the delivery of this little speech. Uncle Jacob had been 
sobbing and panting like a broken- winded horse ; and when Mary 
had done, he rushed up to her and kissed her, and held her tight 
in his arms. “ Bless thee, my child ! ” he cried, “ for having had 
the courage to speak the truth, and shame thy old father and me, 
who dared not say a word.” 

“The girl amazes me,” said Schneider, with a look of astonish- 
ment. “ I never saw her, it is true, till yesterday ; but I used no 
force : her father gave her to me with his free consent, and she 
yielded as gladly. Speak, Edward Ancel, was it not so 1 ” 

“ It was, indeed, by my free consent,” said Edward, trembling. 

“ For shame, brother ! ” cried old Jacob. “ Sir, it was by 
Edward’s free consent and my niece’s ; but the guillotine was in 
the courtyard ! Question Schneider’s famulus, the man Grdgoire, 
him who reads ‘ The Sorrows of Werter.’ ” 

Grdgoire stepped forward, and looked hesitatingly at Schneider 
as he said, “ I know not what took place within doors ; but I was 
ordered to put up the scaffold without ; and I was told to get 
soldiers, and let no one leave the house.” 

“ Citizen St. Just,” cried Schneider, “ you will not allow the 
testimony of a ruffian like this, of a foolish girl, and a mad ex-priest, 
to weigh against the word of one who has done such service to the 
Republic : it is a base conspiracy to betray me ; the whole family 
is known to favour the interest of the emigres^ 

“ And therefore you would marry a member of the family, and. 
allow the others to escape : you must make a better defence. Citizen 
Schneider,” said St. Just sternly. 

Here I came forward, and said that, three days since, I had 
received an order to quit Strasburg for Paris immediately after a 
conversation with Schneider, in which I had asked him his aid in 
promoting my marriage with my cousin, Mary Ancel ; that he liad 


134 


THE PARIS SKETCH BOOK 


heard from me full accounts regarding her father’s wealth ; and that 
he had abruptly caused my dismissal, in order to carry on his 
scheme against her. 

“You are in the uniform of a regiment in this town : who sent 
you from it?” said St. Just. 

I produced the order, signed by himself, and the despatches 
which Schneider had sent me. 

“ The signature is mine, but the despatches did not come from 
my office. Can you prove in any way your conversation with 
Schneider ? ” 

“ Why,” said my sentimental friend Gr^goire, “ for the matter 
of that, I can answer that the lad was always talking about this 
young woman : he told me the whole story himself, and many a 
good laugh I had with Citizen Schneider as we talked about it.” 

“ The charge against Edward Ancel must be examined into,” 
said St. Just. “The marriage cannot take place. But if I had 
ratified it, Mary Ancel, what would then have been your course?” 

Mary felt for a moment in her bosom, and said — He would 
have died to-night — I would have stabbed him with this dagger^* 


The rain was beating down the streets, and yet they were 
thronged; all the world was hastening to the market-place, where 
the worthy Grdgoire was about to perform some of the pleasant 
duties of his office. On this occasion, it was not death that he 
was to inflict ; he was only to expose a criminal who was to be 
sent on afterwards to Paris. St. Just had ordered that Schneider 
should stand for six hours in the public place of Strasburg, and 
then be sent on to the capital, to be dealt with as the authorities 
might think fit. 

The people followed with execrations the villain to his place 
of punishment ; and Grdgoire grinned as he fixed up to the post 
the man whose orders he had obeyed so often — who had delivered 
over to disgrace and punishment so many who merited it not. 

Schneider was left for several hours exposed to the mockery and 
insults of the mob ; he was then, according to his sentence, marched 
on to Paris, where it is probable that he would have escaped death, 
but for his own fault. He was left for some time in prison, quite 
unnoticed, perhaps forgotten : day by day fresh victims were carried 
to the scaffold, and yet the Alsatian tribune remained alive; at 
last, by the mediation of one of his friends, a long petition was 
presented to Robespierre, stating his services and his innocence, 

* This reply, and indeed the whole of the story, is historical. An account, 
by Charles Nodier, in the Revue de Paris, suggested it to the writer. 


THE STORY OF MARY ANCEL 


135 


and demanding his freedom. The reply to this was an order for 
his instant execution ; the wretch died in the last days of Robes- 
pierre’s reign. His comrade, St. Just, followed him, as you know ; 
but Edward Ancel had been released before this, for the action of 
my brave Mary had created a strong feeling in his favour. 

“ And Mary ? ” said I. 

Here a stout and smiling old lady entered the Captain’s little 
room : she was leaning on the arm of a military -looking man of 
some forty years, and followed by a number of noisy rosy children. 

“This is Mary Ancel,” said the Captain, “and I am Captain 
Pierre, and yonder is the Colonel, my son; and you see us here 
assembled in force, for it is the fete of little Jacob yonder, whose 
brothers and sisters have all come from their schools to dance at 
his birthday.” 


BEATRICE MERGER 


B eatrice merger, whose name might figure at the head 
of one of Mr. Colburn’s politest romances — so smooth and 
aristocratic does it sound — is no heroine, except of her own 
simple history ; she is not a fashionable French Countess, nor even 
a victim of the Revolution. 

She is a stout sturdy girl of two-and-twenty, with a face 
beaming with good-nature, and marked dreadfully by small-pox; 
and a pair of black eyes, which might have done some execution 
had they been placed in a smoother face. Beatrice’s station in 
society is not very exalted ; she is a servant of all work : she will 
dress your wife, your dinner, your children ; she does beefsteaks and 
plain work; she makes beds, blacks boots, and waits at table; — 
such, at least, were the offices which she performed in the fashion- 
able establishment of the writer of this book : perhaps her history 
may not inaptly occupy a few pages of it. 

“My father died,” said Beatrice, “about six years since, and 
left my poor mother with little else but a small cottage and a strip 
of land, and four children too young to work. It was hard enough 
in my father’s time to supply so many little mouths with food ; 
and how was a poor widowed woman to provide for them now, who 
had neither the strength nor the opportunity for labour % 

“ Besides us, to be sure, there was my old aunt ; and she would 
have helped us, but she could not, for the old woman is bedridden ; 
so she did nothing but occupy our best room, and grumble from 
morning till night : Heaven knows, poor old soul, that she had no 
great reason to be very happy ; for you know, sir, that it frets the 
temper to be sick ; and that it is worse still to be sick and hungry 
too. 

“ At that time, in the country where we lived (in Picardy, not 
very far from Boulogne), times were so bad that the best workman 
could hardly find employ ; and when he did, he was happy if he 
could earn a matter of twelve sous a day. Mother, work as she 
would, could not gain more than six ; and it was a hard job, out 
of this, to put meat into six bellies, and clothing on six backs. Old 


BEATRICE MERGER 


137 


Aunt Bridget would scold, as she got her portion of black bread ; 
and my little brothers used to cry if theirs did not come in time. I, 
too, used to cry when I got my share ; for mother kept only a little, 
little piece for herself, 'and said that she had dined in the fields, — 
God pardon her for the lie ! and bless her, as I am sure He did ; for, 
but for Him, no working man or woman could subsist upon such a 
wretched morsel as my dear mother took. 

“ I was a thin, ragged, barefooted girl, then, and sickly and 
weak for want of food ; but I think I felt mother’s hunger more than 
my own : and many and many a bitter night I lay awake, crying, 
and praying to God to give me means of working for myself and aid- 
ing her. And He has, indeed, been good to me,” said pious Beatrice, 
“ for He has given me all this ! 

“Well, time rolled on, and matters grew worse than ever: 
winter came, and was colder to us than any other winter, for our 
clothes were thinner and more torn ; mother sometimes could find 
no work, for the fields in which she laboured were hidden under the 
snow; so that when we wanted them most we had them least — 
warmth, work, or food. 

“ I knew that, do what I would, mother would never let me 
leave her, because I looked to my little brothers and my old cripple 
of an aunt : but still, bread was better for us than all my service ; 
and when I left them the six would have a slice more ; so I deter- 
mined to bid good-bye to nobody, but to go away, and look for 
work elsewhere. One Sunday, when mother and the little ones 
were at church, I went in to Aunt Bridget, and said, ‘ Tell mother, 
when she comes back, that Beatrice is gone.’ I spoke quite stoutly, 
as if I did not care about it. 

“ ‘ Gone ! gone where ? ’ said she. ‘ You ain’t going to leave me 
alone, you nasty thing ; you ain’t going to the village to dance, you 
ragged barefooted slut : you’re all of a piece in this house — your 
mother, your brothers, and you. I know you’ve got meat in the 
kitchen, and you only give me black bread ; ’ and here the old lady 
began to scream as if her heart would break ; but we did not mind 
it, we were so used to it. 

“ ‘ Aunt,’ said I, ‘ I’m going, and took this very opportunity 
because you were alone : tell mother I am too old now to eat her 
bread, and do no work for it : I am going, please God, where work 
and bread can be found : ’ and so I kissed her : she was so 
astonished that she could not move or speak ; and I walked away 
through the old room, and the little garden, God knows whither ! 

“ I heard the old woman screaming after me, but I did not 
stop nor 'turn round. I don’t think I could, for my heart was 
very full ; and if I had gone back again, I should never have had 


138 


THE PARIS SKETCH BOOK 


the courage to go away. So I walked a long, long way, until night 
fell ; and I thought of poor motlier coming home from mass, and 
not finding me ; and little Pierre shouting out, in his clear voice, 
for Beatrice to bring him his supper. I think I should like to 
have died that night, and I thought I should too ; for when I was 
obliged to throw myself on the cold hard ground, my feet were too 
torn and weary to bear me any farther. 

“ Just then the moon got up ; and do you know I felt a comfort 
in looking at it, for I knew it was shining on our little cottage, and 
it seemed like an old friend’s face ! A little way on, as I saw by 
the moon, was a village : and I saw, too, that a man was coming 
towards me ; he must have heard me crying, I suppose. 

“ Was not God good to me This man was a farmer, who had 
need of a girl in his house ; he made me tell him why I was alone, 
and I told him the same story I have told you, and he believed 
me and took me home. I had walked six long leagues from our 
village that day, asking everywhere for work in vain ; and here, at 
bedtime, I found a bed and a supper ! 

“ Here I lived very well for some months ; my master was very 
good and kind to me; but, unluckily, too poor to give me any 
wages ; so that I could save nothing to send to my poor mother. 
My mistress used to scold ; but I was used to that at home, from 
Aunt Bridget : and she beat me sometimes, but I did not mind 
it ; for your hardy country girl is not like your tender town 
lasses, who cry if a pin pricks them, and give warning to their 
mistresses at the first hard word. The only drawback to my 
comfort was, that I had no news of my mother ; I could not write 
to her, nor could she have read my letter, if I had ; so there I was, 
at only six leagues’ distance from home, as far off as if I had been 
to Paris or to ’Merica. 

“ However, in a few months I grew so listless and homesick, 
that my mistress said she would keep me no longer; and though 
I went away as poor as I came, I was still too glad to go back to 
the old village again, and see dear mother, if it were but for a day. 
I knew she would share her crust with me, as she had done for so 
long a time before ; and hoped that, now, as I was taller and 
stronger, I might find work more easily in the neighbourhood. 

“ You may fancy what a fete it was when I came back ; though 
I’m sure we cried as much as if it had been a funeral. Mother 
got into a fit, which frightened us all ; and as for Aunt Bridget, 
she shreeled away for hours together, and did not scold for two 
days at least. Little Pierre offered me the whole of his supper; 
poor little man ! his slice of bread was no bigger than before I 
went away. 


BEATRICE MERGER 


139 

“Well, I got a little work here, and a little there; but still 
I was a burden at home rather than a breadwinner; and, at the 
closing in of the winter, was very glad to hear of a place at two 
leagues’ distance, where work, they said, was to be had. Off I set, 
one morning, to find it, but missed my way, somehow, until it was 
night-time before I arrived. Night-time and snow again ; it seemed 
as if all my journeys were to be made in this bitter weather. 

“When I came to the farmer’s door, his house was shut up, 
and his people all a-bed ; I knocked for a long while in vain ; at 
last he made his appearance at a window upstairs, and seemed so 
frightened, and looked so angry, that I suppose he took me for a 
thief. I told him how I had come for work. ‘Who comes for 
work at such an hour 1 ’ said he. ‘ Go home, you impudent baggage, 
and do not disturb honest people out of their sleep.’ He banged 
the window to ; and so I was left alone to shift for myself as I 
might. There was no shed, no cow-house, where I could find a 
bed ; so I got under a cart, on some straw ; it was no very warm 
berth. I could not sleep for the cold : and the hours passed so 
slowly, that it seemed as if I had been there a week, instead of a 
night ; but still it was not so bad as the first night when I left 
home, and when the good farmer found me. 

“ In the morning, before it was light, the farmer’s people came 
out, and saw me crouching under the cart : they told me to get up ; 
but I was so cold that I could not : at last the man himself came, 
and recognised me as the girl who had disturbed him the night 
before. When he heard my name, and the purpose for which I 
came, this good man took me into the house, and put me into one 
of the beds out of which his sons had just got ; and if I was cold 
before, you may be sure I was warm and comfortable now ! such 
a bed as this I had never slept in, nor ever did I have such good 
milk-soup as he gave me out of his own breakfast. Well, he agreed 
to hire me ; and what do you think he gave me ? — six sous a day ! 
and let me sleep in the cow-house besides : you may fancy how 
happy I was now, at the prospect of earning so much money. 

“ There was an old woman among the labourers who used to 
sell us soup : I got a cupful every day for a halfpenny, with a bit 
of bread in it ; and might eat as much beetroot besides as I liked : 
not a very wholesome meal, to be sure, but God took care that it 
should not disagree with me. 

“So, every Saturday, when work was over, I had thirty sous 
to carry home to mother ; and tired though I was, I walked merrily 
the two leagnes to our village, to see her again. On the road there 
was a great wood to pass through, and this frightened me ; for if a 
thief should come and rob me of my whole week’s earnings, what 


140 


THE PARIS SKETCH BOOK 


could a poor lone girl do to help herself? But I found a remedy 
for this too, and no thieves ever came near me ; I used to begin 
saying my prayers as I entered the forest, and never stopped until 
I was safe at home ; and safe I always arrived, with my thirty sous 
in my pocket. Ah ! you may be sure, Sunday was a merry day 
for us all.” 

This is the whole of Beatrice’s history which is worthy of 
publication ; the rest of it only relates to her arrival in Paris, 
and the various masters and mistresses whom she there had the 
honour to serve. As soon as she enters the capital the romance 
disappears, and the poor girl’s sufferings and privations luckily 
vanish with it. Beatrice has got now warm gowns, and stout shoes, 
and plenty of good food. She has had her little brother from 
Picardy ; clothed, fed, and educated him : that young gentleman 
is now a carpenter, and an honour to his profession. Madame 
Merger is in easy circumstances, and receives, yearly, fifty francs 
from her daughter. To crown all. Mademoiselle Beatrice herself 
is a funded proprietor, and consulted the writer of this biography 
as to the best method of laying out a capital ©f two hundred francs, 
which is the present amount of her fortune. 

God bless her ! she is richer than his Grace the Duke of 
Devonshire; and, I dare to say, has, in her humble walk, been 
more virtuous and more happy than all the dukes in the realm. 

It is, indeed, for the benefit of dukes and such great people (who, 
I make no doubt, have long since ordered copies of these Sketches) 
that poor little Beatrice’s story has been indited. Certain it is 
that the young woman would never have been immortalised in this 
way, but for the good which her betters may derive from her 
example. If your Ladyship will but reflect a little, after boasting 
of the sums which you spend in charity; the beef and blankets 
which you dole out at Christmas ; the poonah-painting which you 
execute for fancy fairs ; the long, long sermons which you listen to 
at St. George’s, the whole year through ;— your Ladyship, I say, 
will allow that, although perfectly meritorious in your line, as a 
patroness of the Churcli of England, of Almack’s, and of the Lying- 
in Asylum, yours is but a paltry sphere of virtue, a pitiful attempt 
at benevolence, and that this honest servant-girl puts you to shame ! 
And you, my Lord Bishop : do you, out of yonr six sous a day, give 
away five to support your flock and family? Would you drop a 
single coach-horse (I do not say a dinner, for such a notion is 
monstrous in one of your Lordship’s degree) to feed any one of the 
starving children of your Lordship’s mother — the Church ? 

I pause for a reply. His Lordship took too much turtle 


BEATRICE MERGER 


141 


and cold punch for dinner yesterday, and cannot speak just now ; 
but we have, by this ingenious question, sileneed him altogether : 
let the world wag as it will, and poor Christians and curates starve 
as they may, my Lord’s footmen must have their new liveries, and 
his horses their four feeds a day. 

When we recollect his speech about the Catholics — when we 
remember his last charity sermon, — but I say nothing. Here is a 
j)oor benighted superstitious creature, worshipping images, without 
a rag to her tail, who has as much faith, and humility, and charity, 
as all the reverend bench. 

This angel is without a place ; and for this reason (besides the 
pleasure of composing the above slap at episcopacy) — I have indited 
her history. If the Bishop is going to Paris, and wants a good 
honest maid-of-all-work, he can have her, I have no doubt; or if 
he chooses to give a few pounds to her mother, they can be sent to 
Mr. Titmarsh, at the publisher’s. 

Here is Miss Merger’s last letter and autograph. The note was 
evidently composed by an ecrivain public : — 

“ Madame, — Ayant ajyris jmr ce Alonsieur, que vous vous por- 
tiez bien, ainsi que Monsieur, ayant su aussi que vous parliez de 
moi dans votre lettre cette nouvelle m!a fait bien plaisir Je profite 
de V occasion pour vous faire passer ce qietit billet ou Je voudrais 
pouvoir m^enveloper j)our oiler vous voir et p)our vous dire que Je 
suis encore sans jAace Je m^ennuye tojours de ne p)as vous voir ainsi 
que Alinette \fMinette is a cat] qui semble niHnterroger tour a tour 
et demander ou vous etes. Je vous envoye aussi la note du linge a 
blanchir — ah, Madame ! Je vais cesser de vous ecrire mais non 
de vous regretterJ 



CARICATURES AND LITHOGRAPHY IN PARIS 


IFTY years ago there lived at Munich a poor fellow, by name 



Aloys Senefelder, who was in so little repute as an author 


^ and artist, that printers and engravers refused to publish 
his works at their own charges, and so set him upon some plan 
for doing without their aid. In the first place, Aloys invented 
a certain kind of ink, which would resist the action of the acid 
that is usually employed by engravers, and with this he made 
his experiments upon copper plates, as long as he could afford 
to purchase them. He found that to write upon the plates back- 
wards, after the manner of engravers, required mucli skill and 
many trials; and he thought that, were he to practise upon any 
other polished surface — a smooth stone, for instance, the least 
costly article imaginable — he might spare the expense of the 
copper until he had sufficient skill to use it. 

One day, it is said that Aloys was called upon to write — 
rather a humble composition for an author and artist — a washing- 
bill. He had no paper at hand, and so he wrote out the bill 
with some of his newly-invented ink upon one of his Kelheim 
stones. Some time afterwards he thought he would try and take 
an impression of his washing-bill : he did, and succeeded. Such 
is the story, which the reader most likely knows very well; and 
having alluded to the origin of the art, we shall not follow the 
stream through its windings and enlargement after it issued from 
the little parent rock, or fill our pages with the rest of the pedi- 
gree. Senefelder invented Lithography. His invention has not 
made so much noise and larum in the world as some others, which 
have an origin quite as humble and unromantic ; but it is one 
to which we owe no small profit and a great deal of pleasure ; and, 
as such, we are bound to speak of it with all gratitude and respect. 
The schoolmaster, who is now abroad, has taught us, in our youth, 
how the cultivation of art “ emollit mores nec sinit esse ” — (it is 
needless to finish the quotation) ; and Lithography has been, to 
our thinking, the very best ally that art ever had; the best, friend 
of the artist, allowing him to produce rapidly multiplied and 


CARICATURES AND LITHOGRAPHY 143 

authentic copies of liis own works (without trusting to the tedious 
and expensive assistance of the engraver) ; and the best friend to 
the people likewise, who have means of purchasing these cheap 
and beautiful productions, and thus having their ideas “ mollified ” 
and their manners “ feros ” no more. 

With ourselves, among whom money is plenty, enterprise so 
great, and everything matter of commercial speculation, Lithography 
has not been so much practised as wood or steel engraving ; which, 
by the aid of great original capital and spread of sale, are able 
more than to compete with the art of drawing on stone. The 
two former may be called art done by machinery. We confess 
to a prejudice in favour of the honest work of harid^ in matters of 
art, and prefer the rough workmanship of the painter to the smooth 
copies of his performances which are produced, for the most part, 
on the wood-block or the steel-plate. 

The theory will possibly be objected to by many of our readers : 
the best proof in its fav^our, we think, is, that the state of art 
amongst the people in France and Germany, where publishers are 
not so wealthy or enterprising as with us,* and where Lithography 
is more practised, is infinitely higher than in England, and the ap- 
preciation more correct. As draughtsmen, the French and German 
painters are incomparably superior to our own ; and with art, as 
with any other commodity, the demand will be found pretty equal 
to the supply : with us, the general demand is for neatness, pretti- 
ness, and what is called effect in pictures, and these can be rendered 
completely, nay, improved, by the engraver’s conventional manner 
of copying the artist’s performances. But to copy fine expression 
and fine drawing, the engraver himself must be a fine artist ; and 
let anybody examine the host of picture-books wdiich appear every 
Christmas, and say whether, for the most part, painters or engravers 
possess any artistic merit'? We boast, nevertheless, of some of 
the best engravers and painters in Europe. Here, again, the 
supply is accounted for by the demand ; our higher class is richer 
than any other aristocracy, quite as well instructed, and can judge 
and pay for fine pictures and engravings. But these costly produc- 
tions are for the few, and not for the many, who have not yet 
certainly arrived at properly appreciating fine art. 

Take the standard “Album” for instance — that unfortunate 
collection of deformed Zuleikas and Medoras (from the “Byron 
Beauties”), the Flowers, Gems, Souvenirs, Caskets of Loveliness, 

* These countries are, to be sure, inundated with the productions of our 
market, in the shape of Byron Beauties, reprints from the ” Keepsakes,” 
“Books of Beauty,” and such trash; but these are only of late years, and 
their original schools of art are still flourishing. 


144 


THE PARIS SKETCH BOOK 


Beauty, as they may be called ; glaring caricatures of flowers, singly, 
in groups, in flower-pots, or with hideous deformed little Cupids 
sporting among them ; of what are called “ mezzotinto ” pencil- 
drawings, “ poonah-paintings,” and what not. “ The Album ” is to 
be found invariably upon the round rosewood brass-inlaid drawing- 
room table of the middle classes, and with a couple of “ Annuals ” 
besides, which flank it on the same table, represents the art of the 
house ; perhaps there is a portrait of the master of the house in the 
dining-room, grim-glancing from above the mantelpiece ; and of the 
mistress over the piano upstairs ; add to these some odious miniatures 
of the sons and daughters, on each side of the chimney-glass ; and 
here, commonly (we appeal to the reader if this is an overcharged 
picture) the collection ends. The family goes to the Exhibition 
once a year, to the National Gallery once in ten years : to the 
former place they have an inducement to go ; there are their own 
portraits, or the portraits of their friends, or the portraits of 
public characters ; and you will infallibly see them wondering over 
No. 2645 in the catalogue, representing “The Portrait of a 
Lady,” or of the “ First Mayor of Little Pedlington since the 
Passing of the Reform Bill ; ” or else bustling and squeezing among 
the miniatures, where lies the chief attraction of the Gallery. 
England has produced, owing to the effects of this class of ad- 
mirers of art, two admirable, and five hundred very clever por- 
trait-painters. How many artists ? Let the reader count upon his 
five fingers, and see if, living at the present moment, he can name 
one for each. 

If, from this examination of our own worthy middle classes, we 
look to the same class in France, what a difference do w'e find ! 
Humble cafes in country towns have their walls covered with pleasing 
picture papers, representing, “Les Gloires de rArm^e Fran^aise,” 
the “ Seasons,” the “ Four Quarters of the World,” “ Cupid and 
Psyche,” or some other allegory, landscape, or history, rudely painted, 
as papers for walls usually are ; but the figures are all tolerably well 
drawn ; and the common taste, which has caused a demand for siich 
things, is undeniable. In Paris, the manner in which the cafes and 
houses of the restaurateurs are ornamented is, of course, a thousand 
times richer, and nothing can be more beautiful, or more exquisitely 
finished and correct, than the designs which adorn many of them. 
We are not prepared to say what sums were expended upon the 
painting of “Vary’s” or “Vdfour’s,” of the “Salle Musard,” or of 
numberless other places of public resort in the capital. There is 
many a shopkeeper whose sign is a very tolerable picture ; and 
often have we stopped to admire (the reader will give us credit for 
having remained outside) tlie excellent workmanship of the grapes 


CARICATURES AND LITHOGRAPHY 


145 


and viue-leaves over the door of some very humble, dirty, inodorous 
shop of a marchand de vin. 

These, however, serve only to educate the public taste, and are 
ornaments for the most part much too costly for the people. But 
the same love of ornament which is shown in their public places of 
resort, appears in their houses likewise ; and every one of our readers 
who has lived in Paris, in any lodging, magnificent or humble, with 
any family, however poor, may bear witness how profusely the walls 
of his smart salon in the English quarter, or of his little room an 
sixieme in the Pays Latin, have been decorated with prints of all 
kinds. In the first, probably, with bad engravings on copper from 
the bad and ta-wdry pictures of the artists of the time of the Empire ; 
in the latter, with gay caricatures of Granville or Monuier : military 
pieces, such as are dashed off by Raffet, Charlet, Vernet (one can 
hardly say which of the three designers has the greatest merit or 
the most vigorous hand) ; or clever pictures from the crayon of the 
Deverias, the admirable Roqueplan, or Decamp. We have named 
here, we believe, the principal lithographic artists in Paris ; * and 
those — as doubtless there are many — of our readers who have looked 
over Monsieur Aubert’s portfolios, or gazed at that famous caricature- 
shop window in the Rue du Coq, or are even acquainted with the 
exterior of Monsieur Delaporte’s little emporium in the Burlington 
Arcade, need not be told how excellent the productions of all these 
artists are in their genre. We get in these engravings the loisirs 
of men of genius, not the finikin performances of laboured mediocrity, 
as with us : all these artists are good painters, as well as good 
designers ; a design from them is worth a whole gross of Books of 
Beauty ; and if we might raise a humble supplication to the artists 
in our own country of similar merit — to such men as Leslie, Maclise, 
Herbert, Cattermole, and others— it would be, that they should, 
after the example of their French brethren and of the English land- 
scape painters, take chalk in hand, produce their own copies of their 
own sketches, and never more draw a single “ Forsaken One,” 
“ Rejected One,” “ Dejected One,” at the entreaty of any publisher, 
or for the pages of any Book of Beauty, Royalty, or Loveliness 
whatever. 

Can there be a more pleasing walk in the whole world than a 
stroll through the Gallery of the Louvre on a fete-day ; not to look 
so much at the pictures as at the lookers-on*? Thousands of the 
poorer classes are there : mechanics in their Sunday clothes, smiling 
grisettes, smart dapper soldiers of the line, with bronzed wondering 
faces, marching together in little companies of six or seven, and 
stopping every now and then at Napoleon or Leonidas as they 
appear in proper vulgar heroics in the pictures of David or Gros. 


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The taste of these people will hardly be approved by the connois- 
seur, but they have a taste for art. Can the same be said of our 
lower classes, who, if they are inclined to be sociable and amused in 
their holidays, have no place of resort but the tap-room or tea- 
garden, and no food for conversation except such as can be built 
upon the politics or the police reports of the last Sunday paper 1 
So much has Church and State puritanism done for us — so well 
has it succeeded in materialising and binding down to the earth the 
imagination of men, for which God has made another world (Avhich 
certain statesmen take but too little into account)— that fair and 
beautiful Avorld of art, in which there can be nothing selfish or 
sordid, of which Dulness has forgotten the existence, and which 
Bigotry has endeavoured to shut out from sight — 

“ On a banni les demons et les fees, 

Le raisonneur tristement s’accredite : 

On court, helas ! apres la verite : 

Ah ! croyez-moi, I’erreur a son merite ! ” 

We are not putting in a plea here for demons and fairies, as 
Voltaire does in the above exquisite lines ; nor about to expatiate 
on the beauties of error, for it has none; but the clank of steam- 
engines, and the shouts of politicians, and the struggle for gain or 
bread, and the loud denunciations of stupid bigots, have well-nigh 
smothered poor Fancy among us. We boast of our science, and 
vaunt our superior morality. Does the latter exist? In spite of 
all the forms which our policy has invented to secure it — in spite 
of all the prea.chers, all the meeting-houses, and all the legislative 
enactments — if any person will take upon himself the painful labour 
of purchasing and perusing some of the cheap periodical prints which 
form the people’s library of amusement, and contain what may be 
presumed to be their standard in matters of imagination and fancy, 
he will see how false the claim is that we bring forward of superior 
morality. The aristocracy, who are so eager to maintain, were, of 
course, not the last to feel, the annoyance of the legislative restric- 
tions on the Sabbath, and eagerly seized upon that happy invention 
for dissipating the gloom and ennui ordered by Act of Parliament 
to prevail on that day — the Sunday paper. It might be read in a 
club-room, where the poor could not see how their betters ordained 
one thing for the vulgar, and another for themselves ; or in an easy- 
chair, in the study, whither my Lord retires every Sunday for his 
devotions. It dealt in private scandal and ribaldry, only the more 
piquant for its pretty flimsy veil of double-entendre. It was a 
fortune to the publisher, and it became a necessary to the reader, 
Avhich he could not do without, any more than without his snuffbox. 


CARICATURES AND LITHOGRAPHY 


147 


his opera-box, or his ckasse after coffee. The delightful novelty 
could not for any time be kept exclusively for the haut ton ; and 
from my Lord it descended to his valet or tradesmen, and from 
Grosvenor Square it spread all the town through : so that now the 
lower classes have their scandal and ribaldry organs, as well as their 
betters (the rogues, they will imitate them !), and as their tastes 
are somewhat coarser than my Lord’s, and their numbers a thousand 
to one, why of course the prints have increased, and the profligacy 
has been diffused in a ratio exactly proportionable to the demand, 
until the town is infested with such a number of monstrous publica- 
tions of the kind as would have put Abbd Dubois to the blush, or 
made Louis XV. cry shame. Talk of English morality ! — the worst 
licentiousness, in the worst period of the French monarchy, scarcely 
equalled the wickedness of this Sabbath-keeping country of ours. 

The reader will be glad, at last, to come to the conclusion that 
we would fain draw from all these descriptions — why does this 
immorality exist*? Because the people must be amused, and liave 
not been taught how; because the upper classes, frightened by 
stupid cant, or absorbed in material wants, have not as yet learned 
the reflnement which only the cultivation of art can give; and 
when their intellects are uneducated, and their tastes are coarse,' 
the tastes and amusements of classes still more ignorant must be 
coarse and vicious likewise, in an increased proportion. 

Such discussions and violent attacks upon high and low. 
Sabbath Bills, politicians, and what not, may appear, perhaps, 
out of place in a few pages which purport only to give an account 
of some French drawings ; all we would urge is, that, in France, 
these prints are made because they are liked and appreciated ; with 
us they are not made, because they are not liked and appreciated ; 
and the more is the pity. Nothing merely intellectual will be 
popular among us : we do not love beauty for beauty’s sake, as 
the Germans ; or wit, for wit’s sake, as the French ; for abstract 
art we have no appreciation. We admire H. B.’s caricatures, 
because they are the caricatures of well-known political characters, 
not because they are witty; and Boz, because he writes us good 
palpable stories (if we may use such a word to a story) ; and 
Madame Vestris, because she has the most beautifully shaped legs ; 
— the art of the designer, the writer, the actress (each admirable in 
its way), is a very minor consideration ; each might have ten times 
the wit, and would be quite unsuccessful without their substantial 
points of popularity. 

In France such matters are far better managed, and the love 
of art is a thousand times more keen; and (from this feeling, 
surely) how much superiority is there in French society over our 


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own ; how much better is social happiness understood ; how much 
more manly equality is there between Frenchman and Frenchman, 
than between rich and poor in our own country, with all our 
superior wealth, instruction, and political freedom ! There is, 
amongst the humblest, a gaiety, cheerfulness, politeness, and 
sobriety, to which in England no class can show a parallel : and 
these, be it remembered, are not only qualities for holidays, but 
for working days too, and add to the enjoyment of human life as 
much as good clothes, good beef, or good wages. If, to our freedom, 
we could but add a little of their happiness ! — it is one, after all, 
of the cheapest commodities in the world, and in the power of 
every man (with means of gaining decent bread) who has the will 
or the skiU to use it. 

We are not going to trace the history of the rise and progress 
of art in France : our business, at present, is only to speak of one 
branch of art in that country — lithographic designs, and those 
chiefly of a humorous character. A history of French caricature 
was published in Paris, two or three years back, illustrated by 
numerous copies of designs, from the time of Henry III. to our 
own day. We can only speak of this work from memory, having 
been unable, in London, to procure the sight of a copy ; but our 
impression, at the time we saw the collection, was as unfavourable 
as could possibly be : nothing could be more meagre than the wit, 
or poorer than the execution, of the whole set of drawings. Under 
the Empire, art, as may be imagined, was at a very low ebb ; and 
aping the Government of the day, and catering to the national 
taste and vanity, it was a kind of tawdry caricature of the sublime ; 
of which the pictures of Da^dd and Girodet, and almost the entire 
collection now at the Luxembourg Palace, will give pretty fair 
examples. Swollen, distorted, unnatural, the painting was some- 
thing like the politics of those days ; with force in it, nevertheless, 
and something of grandeur, that will exist in spite of taste, and is 
born of energetic will. A man, disposed to write comparisons of 
characters, might, for instance, find some striking analogies between 
Mountebank Murat, with his irresistible bravery and horsemanship, 
who was a kind of mixture of Duguesclin and Ducrow and Mounte- 
bank David, a fierce powerful painter and genius, whose idea of 
beauty and sublimity seemed to have been gained from the bloody 
melodramas on the Boulevard. Both, however, were great in their 
way, and were worshipped as gods in those heathen times of false 
belief and hero-worship. 

As for poor caricature and freedom of the press, they, like the 
rightful princess in a fairy tale, with the merry fantastic dwarf, her 
attendant, were entirely in the power of the giant who ruled the 


CARICATURES AND LITHOGRAPHY 149 

land. The Princess Press was so closely watched and guarded 
(with some little show, nevertheless, of respect for her rank), that 
she dared not utter a word of her own thoughts; and, for poor 
Caricature, he was gagged, and put out of the way altogether : im- 
prisoned as completely as ever Asmodeus was in his phial. 

How the Press and her attendant fared in succeeding reigns, is 
well known ; their condition was little bettered by the downfall of 
Napoleon: with the accession of Charles X. they were more oppressed 
even than before — more than they could bear; for so hard were 
they pressed, that, as one has seen when sailors are working a 
capstan, back of a sudden the bars flew, knocking to the earth the 
men who were endeavouring to work them. The Revolution came, 
and up sprang Caricature in France; all sorts of fierce epigrams 
were discharged at the flying monarch, and speedily were prepared, 
too, for the new one. 

About this time there lived at Paris (if our information be 
correct) a certain M. Philipon, an indifferent artist (painting was 
his profession), a tolerable designer, and an admirable wit. M. 
Philipon designed many caricatures himself, married the sister of an 
eminent publisher of prints (M. Aubert), and the two, gathering 
about them a body of wits and artists like themselves, set up 
journals of their own : — La Caricature, first published once a week ; 
and the Charivari afterwards, a daily paper, in which a design also 
appears daily. 

At first the caricatirres inserted in the Charivari were chiefly 
political ; and a most curious contest speedily commenced between 
the State and M. Philipon’s little army in the Galerie V(iro-Dodat. 
Half-a-dozen poor artists on the one side, and His Majesty Louis 
Philippe, his august family, and the numberless placemen and 
supporters of the monarchy, on the other ; it was something like 
Thersites girding at Ajax, and piercing through the folds of the 
clypeu8 septemplex with the poisonous shafts of his scorn. Our 
French Thersites was not always an honest opponent, it must be 
confessed ; and many an attack was made upon the gigantic enemy, 
which was cowardly, false, and malignant. But to see the monster 
writhing under the effects of the arrow — to see his uncouth fury in 
return, and the blind blows that he dealt at his diminutive opponent ! 
— not one of these told in a hundred ; when they did tell, it may 
be imagined that they were fierce enough in all conscience, and 
served almost to annihilate the adversary. 

To speak more plainly, and to drop the metaphor of giant and 
dwarf, the King of the French suffered so much, his Ministers were 
so mercilessly ridiculed, his family and his own remarkable figure 
drawn with such odious and grotesque resemblance, in fanciful atti- 


150 


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tudes, circumstances, and disguises, so ludicrously mean, and often 
so appropriate, that the King was obliged to descend into the lists 
and battle his ridiculous enemy in form. Prosecutions, seizures, 
fines, regiments of furious legal officials, were first brought into play 
against poor M. Philipon and his little dauntless troop of malicious 
artists ; some few were bribed out of his ranks ; and if they did 
not, like Gillray in England, turn their Tveapons upon their old 
friends, at least laid down their arms, and would fight no more. 
The bribes, fines, indictments, and loud-tongued avocats du Roi 
made no impression ; Philipon repaired the defeat of a fine by some 
fresh and furious attack upon his great enemy ; if his epigrams were 
more covert, they were no less bitter; if he was beaten a dozen 
times before a jury, he had eighty or ninety victories to show in the 
same field of battle, and every victory and every defeat brought him 
new sympathy. Every one who was at Paris a few years since 
must recollect the famous poire ” which was chalked upon all the 
walls of the city and which bore so ludicrous a resemblance to Louis 
Philippe. The poire became an object of prosecution, and M. 
Pliilipon appeared before a jury to answer for the crime of inciting 
to contempt against the King’s person, by giving such a ludicrous 
version of his face. Philipon, for defence, produced a sheet of paper, 
and drew a poire, a real large Burgundy pear : in the lower parts 
round and capacious, narrower near the stalk, and crowned with 
two or three careless leaves. “ There was no treason at least in 
that’’ he said to the jury : “ could any one object to such a harmless 
botanical representation'?” Then he drew a second pear, exactly 
like the former, except that one or two lines were scrawled in the 
midst of it, which bore somehow a ludicrous resemblance to the 
eyes, nose, and mouth of a celebrated personage ; and, lastly, he 
drew the exact portrait of Louis Philippe ; the well-known toupet, 
the ample whiskers and jowl were there, neither extenuated nor set 
down in malice. “ Can I help it, gentlemen of the jury, then,” 
said he, “if his Majesty’s face is like a pear? Say yourselves, 
respectable citizens, is it, or is it not, like a pear ? ” Such eloquence 
could not fail of its effect ; the artist was acquitted, and La Poire 
is immortal. 

At last came the famous September laws : the freedom of the 
Press, which, from August 1830, was to be “ ddsormais une v^ritd,” 
was calmly strangled by the monarch who had gained his crown for 
his supposed championship of it ; by his Ministers, some of whom 
had been stout Republicans on paper but a few years before ; and 
by the Chamber, which, such is the blessed constitution of French 
elections, will generally vote, unvote, revote in any way the Govern- 
ment wishes. With a wondrous union, and happy forgetfulness of 


CARICATURES AND LITHOGRAPHY 151 

principle, monarch, Ministers, and deputies issued the restrictive 
laws ; the Press was sent to prison ; as for the poor dear Caricature, 
it was fairly murdered. No more political satires appear now, and 
“ through the eye, correct the heart ; ” no more pou'es ripen on the 
walls of tlie metropolis ; Philipon’s political occupation is gone. 

But there is always food for satire ; and the French caricaturists, 
being no longer allowed to hold up to ridicule and reprobation the 
King and the deputies, have found no lack of subjects for the pencil 
in the ridicules and rascalities of common life. We have said that 
public decency is greater amongst the French than amongst us, 
which, to some of our readers, may appear paradoxical; but we 
shall not attempt to argue that, in private roguery, our neighbours 
are not our equals. The proch of Gisquet, which has appeared 
lately in the papers, shows how deep the demoralisation must be, 
and how a Government, based itself on dishonesty (a tyranny, that 
is, under the title and fiction of a democracy), must practise and 
admit corruption in its own and in its agents’ dealings with the 
nation. Accordingly, of cheating contracts, of Ministers dabbling 
with the funds, or extracting underhand profits for the granting of 
unjust privileges and monopolies, — of grasping envious police restric- 
tions, which destroy the freedom, and, with it, the integrity of 
commerce, — those who like to examine such details may find plenty 
in French history : the whole French finance system has been a 
swindle from the days of Louvois, or Law, down to the present 
time. The Government swindles the public, and the small traders 
swindle their customers, on the authority and example of the superior 
powers. Hence the art of roguery, under such high patronage, main- 
tains in France a noble front of imjiudence, and a fine audacious 
openness, which it does not wear in our country. 

Among the various characters of roguery which the French 
satirists have amused themselves by depicting, there is one of which 
the greatness (using the word in the sense which Mr. Jonathan 
Wild gave to it) so far exceeds that of all others, embracing, as it 
does, all in turn, that it has come to be considered the type of 
roguery in general; and now, just as all the political squibs were 
made to come of old from the lips of Pasquin, all the reflections on 
the prevailing cant, knavery, quackery, humbug, are put into the 
mouth of Monsieur Robert Macaire. 

A play was written, some twenty years since, called the 
“Auberge des Adrets,” in which the characters of two robbers 
escaped from the galleys were introduced — Robert Macaire, the 
clever rogue above mentioned, and Bertrand, the stupid rogue, his 
friend, accomplice, butt, and scapegoat; on all occasions of danger. 
It is needless to describe the play — a witless performance enough, 


15 ^ 


THE PARIS SKETCH BOOK 


of which the joke was Macaire’s exaggerated style of conversation, a 
farrago of all sorts of high-flown sentiments such as the French love 
to indulge in — contrasted with his actions, which were philosophi- 
cally unscrupulous, and his appearance, which was most pictu- 
resquely sordid. The play had been acted, we believe, and forgotten, 
when a very clever actor, M. Frdddric Lemaitre, took upon himself 
the performance of the character of Robert Macaire, and looked, 
spoke, and acted it to such admirable perfection, that the whole 
town rung with applauses of the performance, and the caricaturists 
delighted to copy his singular figure and costume. M. Robert 
Macaire appears in a most picturesque green coat, with a variety 
of rents and patches, a pair of crimson pantaloons ornamented in 
the same way, enormous whiskers and ringlets, an enormous stock 
and shirt-fi’ill, as dirty and ragged as stock and sliirt-frill can be, 
the relic of a hat very gaily cocked over one eye, and a patch to 
take away somewhat from the brightness of the other — these are 
the principal 'pieces of his costume — a snuffbox like a creaking 
warming-pan, a handkerchief hanging together by a miracle, and a 
switch of about the thickness of a man’s thigh, formed the ornaments 
of this exquisite personage. He is a compound of Fielding’s 
“ Blueskin ” and Goldsmith’s “ Beau Tibbs.” He has the dirt 
and dandyism of the one, with the ferocity of the other : some- 
times he is made to swindle, but where he can get a shilling more, 
M. Macaire will murder without scruple : he performs one and the 
other act (or any in the scale between them) with a similar bland 
imperturbability, and accompanies his actions with such philosophical 
remarks as may be expected from a person of his talents, his 
energies, his amiable life and character. 

Bertrand is the simple recipient of Macaire’s jokes, and makes 
vicarious atonement for his crimes, acting, in fact, the part wliich 
Pantaloon performs in the pantomime, who is entirely under the 
fatal influence of Clown. He is quite as much a rogue as that 
gentleman, but he has not his genius and courage. So in pantomimes 
(it may, doubtless, have been remarked by the reader). Clown 
always leaps first. Pantaloon following after, more clumsily and 
timidly than his bold and accomplished friend and guide. What- 
ever blows are destined for Clown, fall, by some means of ill- 
luck, upon the pate of Pantaloon : whenever the CloAvn robs, the 
stolen articles are sure to be found in his companion’s pocket ; 
and thus exactly Robert Macaire and his companion Bertrand 
are made to go through the world ; both swindlers, but the one 
more accomplished than the other. Both robbing all the world, 
and Robert robbing his friend, and, in the event of danger, leaving 
him faithfully in the lurch. There is, in the two characters, 


CARICATURES AND LITHOGRAPHY 153 

some grotesque good for the spectator — a kind of “ Beggars’ Opera ” 
moral. 

Ever since Robert, with his dandified rags and airs, his cane 
and snuffbox, and Bertrand with torn surtout and all-absorbing 
pocket, have appeared on the stage, they have been popular with 
the Parisians ; and with these two types of clever and stupid 
knavery, M. Philipon and his companion Daumier have created a 
world of pleasant satire upon all the prevailing abuses of the day. 

Almost the first figure that these audacious caricaturists dared 
to depict was a political one : in Macaire’s red breeches and tattered 
coat appeared no less a personage than the King himself — the old 
Poire — in a country of humbugs and swindlers the facile 'prince 2 ) 8 ; 
fit to govern, as he is deeper than all the rogues in his dominions. 
Bertrand was opposite to him, and having listened with delight and 
reverence to some tale of knavery truly Royal, was exclaiming, with 
a look and voice expressive of the most intense admiration, “ Ah, 
viEUX BLAGUEUR ! va ! ” — the word blague is untranslatable — it 
means French humbug as distinct from all other ; and only those 
who know the value of an epigram in France, an epigram so 
wonderfully just, a little word so curiously comprehensive, can 
fancy the kind of rage and rapture with which it was received. It 
was a blow that shook the whole dynasty. Thersites had there 
given such a wound to Ajax, as Hector in arms could scarcely have 
inflicted ; a blow sufficient almost to create the madness to which 
the fabulous hero of Homer and Ovid fell a prey. 

Not long, however, was French caricature allowed to attack 
personages so illustrious : the September laws came, and henceforth 
no more epigrams were launched against politicians; the caricaturists 
were compelled to confine their satire to subjects and characters that 
had nothing to do with the State. The Duke of Orleans was no 
longer to figure in lithography as the fantastic Prince Rosolin ; no 
longer were multitudes (in chalk) to shelter under the enormous 
shadow of M. d’Argout’s nose ; Marshal Lobau’s squirt was hung 
up in peace, and M. Thiers’s pigmy figure and round spectacled face 
were no more to appear in print.* Robert Macaire was driven out 
of the Chambers and the Palace — his remarks were a great deal too 
appropriate and too severe for the ears of the great men who con- 
gregated in those places. 

The Chambers and the Palace were shut to him ; but the rogue, 
driven out of his rogue’s paradise, saw “that the world was all 
before him where to choose/’ and found no lack of opportunities for 

* Almost all the principal public men had been most ludicrously caricatured 
in the Charivari: those mentioned above were usually depicted with the dis- 
tinctive attributes mentioned by us. 


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exercising his wit. There was tlie Bar, with its roguish practitioners, 
rascally attorneys, stupid juries, and forsworn judges ; there was the 
Bourse, with all its gambling, swindling, and hoaxing, its cheats and 
its dupes ; the Medical Profession, and the quacks who ruled it, 
alternately ; the Stage, and the cant that was prevalent there ; the 
Fashion, and its thousand follies and extravagances. Robert Macaire 
had all these to exploiter. Of all the empire, through all the ranks, 
professions, the lies, crimes, and absurdities of men, he may make 
sport at will : of all except of a certain class. Like Bluebeard’s 
wife, he may see everything, but is bidden to beware of the blue 
chamber. Robert is more wise than Bluebeard’s wife, and knows 
that it would cost him his head to enter it. Robert, therefore, keeps 
aloof for the moment. Would there be any use in his martyrdom 
Bluebeard cannot live for ever; perhaps, even now, those are on 
their way (one sees a suspicious cloud of dust or two) that are to 
destroy him. 

In the meantime Robert and his friend have been furnishing the 
designs that we have before us, and of which perhaps the reader will 
be edified by a brief description. We are not, to be sure, to judge of 
the French nation by M. Macaire, any more than we are to judge of 
our own national morals in the last century by such a book as the 
“ Beggars’ Opera ” ; but upon the morals and the national manners, 
works of satire aftbrd a world of light that one would in vain look 
for in regular books of history. Doctor Smollett would have blushed 
to devote any considerable portion of his pages to a discussion of the 
acts and character of Mr. Jonathan Wild, such a figure being hardly 
admissible among the dignified personages who usually push all others 
out from the possession of the historical page ; but a chapter of that 
gentleman’s memoirs, as they are recorded in that exemplary recueil 
— the “ Newgate Calendar ” ; nay, a canto of the great comic epic 
(involving many fables, and containing much exaggeration, but still 
having the seeds of truth) which the satirical poet of those days 
wrote in celebration of him — we mean Fielding’s “ History of 
Jonathan Wild the Great ” — does seem to us to give a more curious 
picture of the manners of those times than any recognised history 
of them. At the close of his history of George II., Smollett con- 
descends to give a short chapter on Literature and Manners. He 
speaks of Glover’s “ Leonidas,” Cibber’s “ Careless Husband,” the 
poems of Mason, Grey, the two Whiteheads, “the nervous style, 
extensive erudition, and superior sense of a Corke ; the delicate taste, 
the polished muse, and tender feeling of a Lyttelton.” “ King,” he 
says, “ shone unrivalled in Roman eloquence ; the female sex dis- 
tinguished themselves by their taste and ingenuity. Miss Carter 
rivalled tlie celebrated Dacier in learning and critical knowledge; 


CARICATURES AND LITHOGRAPHY 


55 


Mrs. Lennox signalised herself by many successful efforts of genius 
both in poetry and prose ; and Mis& Reid excelled the celebrated 
Rosalba in portrait-painting, both in miniature and at large, in oil 
as well as in crayons. The genius of Cervantes was transferred into 
the novels of Fielding, Avho painted the characters and ridiculed the 
follies of life with equal strength, humour, and propriety. The field 
of history and biography was cultivated by many writers of ability, 
among whom we distinguish the copious Guthrie, the circumstantial 
Ralph, the laborious Carte, the learned and elegant Robertson, and 
above all, the ingenious, penetrating, and comprehensive Hume,” 
&c. &c. We will quote no more of the passage. Could a man in 
the best humour sit down to write a graver satire ? Who cares for 
the tender muse of Lyttelton? Who knows the signal efforts of 
Mrs. Lennox’s genius ? Who has seen the admirable j)erformances, 
in miniature and at large, in oil as well as in crayons, of Miss Reid ? 
Laborious Carte, and circumstantial Ralph, and copious Guthrie, 
where are they, their works, and their reputation ? Mrs. Lennox’s 
name is just as clean wiped out of the list of worthies as if slie liad 
never been bom ; and Miss Reid, though she was once actual flesh 
and blood, “ rival in miniature and at large ” of the celebrated 
Rosalba, she is as if she had never been at all ; her little farthing 
rushlight of a soul and reputation having burnt out, and left neither 
wick nor tallow. Death, too, has overtaken copious Guthrie and 
circumstantial Ralph. Only a few know whereabouts is the grave 
where lies laborious Carte ; and yet, 0 wondrous power of genius ! 
Fielding’s men and women are alive, though History’s are not. The 
progenitors of circumstantial Ralph sent forth, after much labour 
and pains of making, educating, feeding, clothing, a real man child, 
a great palpable mass of flesh, bones, and blood (we say nothing 
about the spirit), which was to move through the world, ponderous, 
writing histories, and to die, having achieved the title of circum- 
stantial Ralph ; and lo ! without any of the trouble that the parents 
of Ralph had undergone, alone perhaps in a watch or spunging-house, 
fuddled most likely, in the blandest, easiest, and most good-humoured 
way in the world, Henry Fielding makes a number of men and 
women on so many sheets of paper, not only more amusing than 
Ralph or Miss Reid, but more like flesh and blood, and more alive 
now than they. Is not Amelia preparing her husband’s little supper? 
Is not Miss Snapp chastely preventing the crime of Mr. Firebrand ? 
Is not Parson Adams in the midst of his family, and Mr. Wild 
taking his last bowl of punch with the Newgate Ordinary? Is not 
every one of them a real substantial have-h^en personage now ? — 
more real than Reid or Ralph ? For our parts, we will not take 
upon ourselves to say that they do not exist somewhere else, that 


156 


THE PARIS SKETCH BOOK 


the actions attributed to them have not really taken place ; certain 
we are that they are more worthy of credence than Ralph, who may 
or may not have been circumstantial; who may or may not even 
have existed, a point unworthy of disputation. As for Miss Reid, 
we will take an affidavit that neither in miniature nor at large did 
she excel the celebrated Rosalba ; and with regard to Mrs. Lennox, 
we consider her to be a mere figment, like Narcissa, Miss Tabitha 
Bramble, or any hero or heroine depicted by the historian of “ Pere- 
grine Pickle.” 

In like manner, after viewing nearly ninety portraits of Robert 
Macaire and his friend Bertrand, all strongly resembling each other, 
we are inclined to believe in them as historical personages, and to 
canvass gravely the circumstances of their lives. Why should we 
not 1 Have we not their portraits ? Are not they sufficient proofs ? 
If not, we must discredit Napoleon (as Archbishop Whately teaches), 
for about his figure and himself we have no more authentic 
testimony. 

Let the reality of M. Robert Macaire and his friend M. Bertrand 
be granted, if but to gratify our own fondness for those exquisite 
characters : we find the worthy pair in the French capital, mingling 
with all grades of its society, pars magna in the intrigues, pleasures, 
perplexities, rogueries, speculations, which are carried on in Paris, 
as in our own chief city ; for it need not be said that roguery is of 
no country nor clime, but finds ws Travra^ou ye irarpls i) jSoa-Kova-a 
yy], is a citizen of all countries where the quarters are good ; among 
our merry neighbours it finds itself very much at its ease. 

Not being endowed, then, with patrimonial wealth, but com- 
pelled to exercise their genius to obtain distinction, or even subsist- 
ence, we see Messrs. Bertrand and Macaire, by turns, adopting all 
trades and professions, and exercising each with their own peculiar 
ingenuity. As public men, we have spoken already of their ap- 
pearance in one or two important characters, and stated that the 
Government grew fairly jealous of them, excluding them from office, 
as the Whigs did Lord Brougham. As private individuals they are 
made to distinguish themselves as the founders of journals, socie'te's 
en commandite (companies of which the members are irresponsible 
beyond the amount of their shares), and all sorts of commercial 
speculations, requiring intelligence and honesty on the part of the 
directors, confidence and liberal disbiu-sements from the share- 
holders. 

Tliese are, among the French, so numerous, and have been 
of late years (in the shape of Newspaper Companies, Bitumen 
Companies, Galvanised-Iron Companies, Railroad Companies, &c.) 
pursued with such a blind furor and lust of gain by that easily 


CARICATURES AND LITHOGRAPHY 157 

excited and imaginative people, that, as may be imagined, the 
satirist has foimd plenty of occasion for remark, and M. Macaire 
and his friend innimierable opportunities for exercising their talents. 

We know nothing of M. Emile de Girardin, except that, in a 
duel, he shot the best man in France, Arrnand Carrel ; and in 
Girardin’s favour it must be said, that he had no other alternative ; 
but was right in provoking the duel, seeing that the whole Republican 
party had vowed his destruction, and that he fought and killed 
their champion, as it were. We know nothing of M. Girardin’s 
private character; but, as far as we can judge from the French 
l)ublic prints, he seems to be the most speculative of speculators, 
and, of course, a fair butt for the malice of the caricaturists. 
His one great crime, in the eyes of the French Republicans and 
Republican newspaper proprietors, was, that Girardin set up a 
journal, as he called it, “franchement monarchique,” — a journal in 
the pay of the monarchy, that is, — and a journal that cost only 
forty francs by the year. The National costs twice as much ; the 
Charivari itself costs half as much again ; and though all news- 
papers, of all parties, concurred in “snubbing” poor M. Girardin 
and his journal, the Republican prints were by far the most bitter 
against him, thundering daily accusations and personalities ; whether 
the abuse was well or ill founded, we know not. Hence arose the 
duel with Carrel ; after the termination of which, Girardin put by 
his pistol, and vowed, very properly, to assist in the shedding of no 
more blood. Girardin had been the originator of numerous other 
speculations besides the journal : the capital of these, like that of 
the journal, was raised by shares, and the shareholders, by some 
fatality, have found themselves woefully in the lurch ; while Girardin 
carries on the war gaily, is, or was, a member of the Chamber of 
Deputies, has money, goes to Court, and possesses a certain kind of 
reputation. He invented, we believe, the “ Institution Agronome 
de Coetbo,”* the “ Physionotype,’* the “ Journal des Connaissances 
Utiles,” the “ Pantheon Littdraire,” and the system of “ Primes ” — 
premiums, that is — to be given, by lottery, to certain subscribers in 
these institutions. Could Robert Macaire see such things going on, 
and have no hand in them % 

Accordingly Messrs. Macaire and Bertrand are made the heroes 
of many speculations of the kind. In almost the first print of our 
collection, Robert discourses to Bertrand of his projects. “Bertrand,” 
says the disinterested admirer of talent and enterprise, “j’adore 
I’industrie. Si tu veux, nous crdons une banque, mais Ik, une vraie 
banque ; capital, cent millions de millions, cent milliards de milliards 


It is not necessary to enter into descriptions of these various inventions. 


158 


THE PARIS SKETCH BOOK 


d’actions. Nous eiifou^oiis la baiique de France, les banquiers, les 
banquistes ; nous enfon^ons tout le inonde.” “ Oui,” says Bertrand, 
very calm and stupid, “mais les gendarmes'?” “ Que tu es bete, 
Bertrand : est-ce qu’on arrete un millionnaire *? ” Such is the key 
to M. Macaire’s philosophy ; and a wise creed too, as times go. 

Acting on these principles, Robert appears soon after : he has 
not created a bank, but a journal. He sits in a chair of state, 
and discourses to a shareholder. Bertrand, calm and stupid as 
before, stands humbly behind. “ Sir,” says the editor of La Blague^ 
journal quotidienne, “our profits arise from a new combination. 
The journal costs twenty francs ; we sell it for twenty-three and a 
half. A million subscribers make three millions and a half of 
profits ; there are my figures ; contradict me by figures, 'or I will 
bring an action for libel.” The reader may fancy the scene takes 
place in England, where many such a swindling prospectus has 
obtained credit ere now. At Plate 33, Robert is still a journalist ; 
he brings to the editor of a paper an article of his composition, a 
violent attack on a law. “ My dear M. Macaire,” says the editor, 
“this must be changed; we must^rm'se this law.” “Bon, bon !” 
says our versatile Macaire. “ Je vais retoucher 9 a, et je vous fais 
en faveur de la loi un article mousseux.” 

Can such things be? Is it possible that French journalists 
can so forget themselves ? The rogues ! they should come to 
England and learn consistency. The honesty of the Press in 
England is like the air we breathe, without it we die. No, no ! 
in France the satire may do very well; but for England it is too 
monstrous. Call the Press stupid, call it vulgar, call it violent, — 
but honest it is. Who ever heard of a journal changing its politics ? 
0 tempora ! 0 mores ! as Robert Macaire says, this would be 
carrying the joke too far. 

When he has done with newspapers, Robert Macaire begins 
to distinguish himself on ’Change,* as a creator of companies, a 
vendor of shares, or a dabbler in foreign stock. “ Buy my coal- 
mine shares,” shouts Robert; “gold mines, silver mines, diamond 
mines, ‘ sont de la pot-bouille, de la ratatouille en comparaison de 
ma houille.’ ” “ Look,” says he, on another occasion, to a very 

timid open-countenanced client, “ you have a property to sell ! I 
have found the very man, a rich capitalist, a fellow whose bills are 
better than bank-notes.” His client sells; the bills are taken in 
payment, and signed by that respectable capitalist. Monsieur de 
Saint-Bertrand. At Plate 81, we find him inditing a circular letter 
to all the world, running thus “ Sir, — I regret to say that your 

* We have given a description of a genteel Macaire in the account of M. de 
Bernard’s novels. 


CARICATURES AND LITHOGRAPHY 159 

application for shares in the Consolidated European Incombustible 
Blacking Association cannot be complied with, as all the shares 
of the C. E. I. B. A. were disposed of on the day they were issued. 
I have, nevertheless, registered your name, and in case a second 
series should be put forth, I shall have the honour of immediately 
giving you notice. I am, sir, yours, &c., the Director, Robert 
Macaire.” — “ Print three hundred thousand of these,” he says to 
Bertrand, “and poison all France with them.” As usual, the stupid 
Bertrand remonstrates — “ But we have not sold a single share ; 

you have not a penny in your pocket, and ” “ Bertrand, you are 

an ass ; do as I bid you.” 

Will this satire apply anywhere in England? Have we any 
Consolidated European Blacking Associations amongst us ? Have 
we penniless directors issuing El Dorado prospectuses, and jockeying 
their shares through the market? For information on this head, 
we must refer the reader to the newspapers ; or if he be connected 
with the City, and acquainted with commercial men, he will be 
able to say whether all the persons whose names figure at the head 
of announcements of projected companies are as rich as Rothschild, 
or quite as honest as heart could desire. 

When Macaire has sufficiently exploite the Bourse, whether as a 
gambler in the public funds or other companies, he sagely perceives 
that it is time to turn to some other profession, and, providing 
himself with a black gown, proposes blandly to Bertrand to set up 
— a new religion. “ Mon ami,” says the repentant sinner, “ le temps 
de la commandite va passer, mais les hadauds ne 2^cL8seront pas” 
(0 rare sentence ! it should be written in letters of gold !) “ Occu- 

2)ons-nous de ce qui est eternel. Si nous fassions une religion?” 
On which M. Bertrand remarks, “ A religion ! what the devil — a 
religion is not an easy thing to make.” But Macaire’s receipt is 
easy. “Get a govm, take a shop,” he says, “borrow some chairs, 
preach about Napoleon, or the discovery of America, or Molik'e — 
and there’s a religion for you.” 

We have quoted this sentence more for the contrast it offers 
with our own manners, than for its merits. After the noble 
paragraj)!!, “Les badauds ne passeront pas. Occupons-nous de ce 
qui est dternel,” one would have expected better satire upon cant 
than the words that follow. We are not in a condition to say 
w'hether the subjects chosen are those that had been selected by 
Pk'e Enfantin, or Chatel, or Lacordaire ; but the words are curious, 
we think, for the very reason that the satire is so poor. The fact 
is, there is no religion in Paris; even clever M. Philipon, who 
satirises everything, and must know, therefore, some little about the 
subject which he ridicules, has nothing to say but, “ Preach a 


l60 


THE PARIS SKETCH BOOK 


sermon, and that makes a religion ; anything will do.” If anything 
will do, it is clear that the religious commodity is not in much 
demand. Tartuffe had better things to say about hypocrisy in his 
time ; but then Faith was alive ; now, there is no satirising religious 
cant in France, for its contrary, true religion, has disappeared 
altogether; and having no substance, can cast no shadow. If a 
satirist would lash the religious hypocrites in England now — the 
Higli Church hypocrites, the Low Church hypocrites, the promis- 
cuous Dissenting hypocrites, the No-Popery hypocrites — he would 
liave ample subject enough. In France, the religious hypocrites 
went out with the Bourbons. Those who remain pious in that 
country (or, rather, we should say, in the capital, for of that we 
speak) are unaffectedly so, for they have no worldly benefit to hope 
for from their piety ; the great majority have no religion at all, and 
do not scoff at the few, for scoffing is the minority’s weapon, and is 
passed always to the weaker side, whatever that may be. Thus 
H. B. caricatures the Ministers : if by any accident that body of 
men should be dismissed from their situations, and be succeeded by 
H. B.’s friends, the Tories, — what must the poor artist do? He 
must pine aAvay and die, if he be not converted ; he cannot always 
be paying compliments ; for caricature has a spice of Goethe’s Devil 
in it, and is “der Geist der stets verneint,” the Spirit that is 
always denying. 

With one or two of the French writers and painters oT cari- 
catures, the King tried the experiment of bribery ; which succeeded 
occasionally in buying off the enemy, and bringing him from the 
Republican to the Royal camp ; but when there, the deserter was 
never- of any use. Figaro, when so treated, grew fat and despond- 
ing, and lost all his sprightly ver ve ; and Nemesis became as gentle 
as a Quakeress. But these instances of “ ratting ” were not many. 
Some few poets were bought over ; but, among men following the 
profession of the Press, a change of politics is an infringement of the 
point of honour, and a man must fight as well as apostatise. A 
very curious table might be made, signalising the difference of tlie 
moral standard between us and the French. Why is the grossness 
and indelicacy, publicly permitted in England, imknoAvn in France, 
where private morality is certainly at a lower ebb % Why is the 
point of private honour now more rigidly maintained among the 
French % Why is it, as it should be, a moral disgrace for a French- 
man to go into debt, and no disgrace for him to cheat his customer 1 
Wliy is there more honesty and less — more propriety and less? — • 
and how are we to account for the particular vices or virtues which 
belong to each nation in its turn ? 

The above is the Reverend M. Macaire’s solitary exploit as a 


CARICATURES AND LITHOGRAPHY l6l 

spiritual swindler : as Maitre Macaire in the courts of law, as 
avocat, avou ^ — in a humbler capacity even, as a prisoner at the 
bar, he distinguishes himself greatly, as may be imagined. On 
one occasion we find the learned gentleman humanely visiting an 
.unfortunate detenu — no other person, in fact, than his friend 
M. Bertrand, who has fallen into some trouble, and is awaiting 
the sentence of the law. He begins — 

“ Mon cher Bertrand, donne-moi cent ^cus, je te fais acquitter 
d’emblde.” 

“ J’ai pas d’argent.” 

“ H(^ bien, donne-moi cent francs.” 

“ Pas le sou.” 

“ Tu n’as pas dix francs ? ” 

“ Pas un hard.” 

“Alors donne-moi tes bottes, je jdaiderai la circonstance at- 
tdnuante.” 

The manner in whicli Maitre Macaire soars from the cent ecus 
(a high point already) to the sublime of the boots, is in the best 
comic style. In another instance he pleads before a judge, and, 
mistaking his client, pleads for defendant, instead of plaintiff. “ The 
infamy of the plaintift”s character, my hids^ renders his testimony 
on sucli a charge as this wholly unavailing.” “M. Macaire, M. 
Macaire,” cries the attorney, in a fright, “ you are for the plaintiff.” 
“ This, my Lords, is what the defendant will say. This is the line 
of defence which the opposite party intend to pursue ; as if slanders 
like these could weigh with an enlightened jury, or injure the 
spotless reputation of my client ! ” In this story and expedient 
M. Macaire has been indebted to the English bar. If there be an 
occupation for the English satirist in the exposing of the cant and 
knavery of the pretenders to religion, what room is there for him 
to lash the infamies of the law' ! On this point the French are 
babes in iniquity compared to us — a counsel prostituting himself 
for money is a matter with us so stale, that it is hardly food for 
satire : whicli, to be popular, must find some much more complicated 
and interesting knavery whereon to exercise its skill. 

M. Macaire is more skilful in love than in law, and appears 
once or twice in a very amiable light while under the influence of 
the tender passion. We find him at the head of one of those useful 
establishments unknown in our country — a Bureau de Manage : half- 
a-dozen of such places are daily advertised in the journals : and 
“une veuve de trente ans ay ant une fortune de deux cent mille 
francs,” or “ une demoiselle de quinze ans, jolie, d’une famille tr^s 
distingu^e, qui poss^de trente mille livres de rentes,” — continually, 
in this kind-hearted way, are offering themselves to the public; 

5 L 


162 


THE PARIS SKETCH BOOK 


soinetiiiies it is a gentleman, with a “ physique agr^able, — des talens 
de soci^t^ ” — and a place under Government, wdio makes a sacrifice 
of himself in a similar manner. In our little historical gallery we 
find this philanthropic anti-Malthusian at the head of an establish- 
ment of this kind, introducing a very meek simple-looking bachelor 
to some distinguished ladies of his connaissance, “Let me present 
you, sir, to Madame de St. Bertrand ” (it is our old friend), “ veuve 
de la grande arim^e, et Mdlle. Eloa de Wormspire. Ces dames 
bnllent d’envie de faire votre connaissance. Je les ai invitees k 
diner chez vous ce soir : vous nous m^nerez k Topdra, et nous ferons 
line petite partie d’^cart^. Tenez-vous bien, M. Gobard ! ces dames 
ont des projets sur vous ! ” 

Happy Gobard ! happy system, which can thus bring the pure 
and loving together, and acts as the best ally of Hymen ! The 
announcement of the rank and titles of Madame de St. Bertrand — 
“ veuve de la grande armde ” — is very happy. “ La grande arm^e ” 
has been a father to more orphans, and a husband to more widows, 
than it ever made. Mistresses of cafes, old governesses, keepers of 
boarding-houses, genteel beggars, and ladies of lower rank still, have 
this favourite pedigree. They have all had malheurs (what kind 
it is needless to particularise), they are all connected with the grand 
homme, and their fathers were all colonels. This title exactly 
answers to the “clergyman’s daughter” in England — as, “A young 
lady, the daughter of a clergyman, is desirous to teach,” &c. ; “ A 
clergyman’s widow receives into her house a few select,” and so 
forth. “ Appeal to the benevolent. — By a series of unheard-of 
calamities, a young lady, daughter of a clergyman in the w^est of 
England, has been plunged,” &c. &c. The difference is curious, as 
indicating the standard of respectability. 

The male beggar of fashion is not so well known among us as in 
Paris, where street-doors are open ; six or eight families live in a 
house ; and the gentleman who earns his livelihood by this profession 
can make half-a-dozen visits without the trouble of knocking from 
house to house, and the pain of being observed by the whole street, 
while the footman is examining him from the area. Some few may 
be seen in England about the inns of court, where the locality is 
favourable (where, however, the owners of the chambers are not 
proverbially soft of heart, so that the harvest must be poor) ; but 
Paris is full of such adventurers,^ — fat, smooth-tongued, and well 
dressed, with gloves and gilt-headed canes, who would be insulted 
almost by the offer of silver, and expect your gold as their right. 
Among these, of course, our friend Robert plays his part; and an 
excellent engraving represents him, snuffbox in hand, advancing to 
an old gentleman, whom, by his poodle, his powdered head, and his 


CARICATURES AND LITHOGRAPHY l63 

drivelling stupid look, one knows to be a Carlist of the old regime. 
“ I beg pardon,” says Robert ; “ is it really yourself to whom I have 
the honour of speaking 1” — “It is.” “Do you take snuff?” — “I 
thank you.” “Sir, I have had misfortunes — I want assistance. I 
am a Venddan of illustrious birth. You know the family of 
Macairbec — we are of Brest. My grandfather served the King in 
his galleys ; my father and I belong, also, to the marine. Unfortu- 
nate suits at law have plunged us into difficulties, and I do not 
hesitate to ask you for the succour of ten francs.” — “ Sir, I never 
give to those I don’t know.” — “ Right, sir, perfectly right. Perhaps 
you will have the kindness to lend me ten francs ? ” 

The adventures of Doctor Macaire need not be described, because 
the different degrees in quackery which are taken by that learned 
physician are all well known in England, where we have the advan- 
tage of many higher degrees in the science, which our neighbours 
know nothing about. We have not Hahnemann, but we have his 
disciples ; we have not Broussais, but we have the College of 
Health ; and surely a dose of Morison’s pills is a sublimer discovery 
than a draught of hot water. We had St. John Long, too — where 
is his science ? — and we are credibly informed that some important 
cures have been effected by the inspired dignitaries of “ the church ” 
in Newman Street — which, if it continue to practise, will sadly 
interfere with the profits of the regular physicians, and where the 
miracles of the Abbd Paris are about to be acted over again. 

In speaking of M. Macaire and his adventures, we have managed 
so entirely to convince ourselves of the reality of the personage, 
that we have quite forgotten to speak of Messrs. Philipon and 
Daumier, who are, the one the inventor, tlie other the designer, 
of the Macaire Picture Gallery. As works of esjjrit, these drawings 
are not more remarkable than they are as works of art, and we 
never recollect to have seen a series of sketches possessing more 
extraordinary cleverness and variety. The countenance and figure 
of Macaire and the dear stupid Bertrand are preserved, of course, 
with great fidelity throughout ; but the admirable way in which 
each fresh character is conceived, the grotesque appropriateness of 
Robert’s every successive attitude and gesticulation, and the variety 
of Bertrand’s postures of invariable repose, the exquisite fitness of 
all the other characters, who act their little part and disappear 
from the scene, cannot be described on paper, or too highly lauded. 
The figures are very carelessly drawn ; but, if the reader can under- 
stand us, all the attitudes and limbs are perfectly conceived^ and 
wonderfully natural and various. After pondering over these draw- 
ings for some hours, as we have been while compiling this notice 
of them, we have grown to believe that the personages are real, 


l64 


THE PARIS SKETCH BOOK 


and the scenes remain imprinted on the brain as if we had abso- 
lutely been present at their acting. Perhaps the clever way in 
which the plates are coloured, and the excellent effect which is 
put into each, may add to this illusion. Now, in looking, for in- 
stance, at H. B.’s slim vapoury figures, they have struck us as 
excellent likenesses of men and women, but no more ; the bodies 
want spirit, action, and individuality. George Cruikshank, as a 
humourist, has quite as much genius, but he does not know the 
art of “ effect ” so well as Monsieur Daumier ; and, if we might 
venture to give a word of advice to another humorous designer, 
whose works are extensively circulated — the illustrator of “Pick- 
wick ” and “ Nicholas Nickleby,” — it would be to study well these 
caricatures of Monsieur Daumier ; who, though he executes very 
carelessly, knows very well wJiat he would express, indicates perfectly 
the attitude and identity of his figure, and is quite aware, before- 
hand, of the effect which he intends to produce. The one we should 
fancy to be a practised artist, taking his ease; the other, a young 
one, somewhat bewildered : a very clever one, however, who, if he 
would think more, and exaggerate less, would add not a little to 
his reputation. 

Having pursued, all through these remarks, the comparison 
between English art and French art, English and French humour, 
manners, and morals, perhaps we should endeavour, also, to write 
an analytical essay on English cant or humbug, as distinguished 
from French. It might be shown that the latter was more 
picturesque and startling, the former more substantial and positive. 
It has none of the poetic flights of the French genius, but advances 
steadily, and gains more ground in the end than its sprightlier 
compeer. But such a discussion would carry us through the whole 
range of French and English history, and the reader has probably 
read quite enough of the subject in this and the foregoing pages. 

We shall, therefore, say no more of French and English carica- 
tures generally, or of Mr. Macaire’s particular accomplishments and 
adventures. They are far better understood by examining the 
original pictures, by which Philipon and Daumier have illustrated 
them, than by translations first into print and afterwards into 
English. Tliey form a very curious and instructive commentary 
upon the present state of society in Paris, and a hundred years 
hence, when the whole of this struggling, noisy, busy, merry race 
shall have exchanged their pleasures or occupations for a quiet 
coffin (and a tawdry lying epitaph) at Montmartre, or Pfere la 
Chaise ; when the follies here recorde<l shall have been superseded 
by new ones, and the fools now so active shall have given up the 
inheritance of the world to their children : the latter will, at least. 


CARICATURES AND LITHOGRAPHY l65 


have the advantage of knowing, intimately and exactly, the manners 
of life and being of their grandsires, and calling up, when they so 
choose it, our ghosts from the grave, to live, love, quarrel, swindle, 
suffer, and struggle on blindly as of yore. And when the amused 
spectator shall have laughed sufficiently at the immensity of our 
follies, and the paltriness of our aims, smiled at our exploded 
superstitions, wondered how this man should be considered great, 
who is now clean forgotten (as copious Guthrie before mentioned) ; 
how this should have been thought a patriot who is but a knave 
spouting commonplace; or how that should have been dubbed a 
l)hilosopher who is but a dull fool, blinking solemn, and pretending 
to see in the dark ; when he shall have examined all these at his 
leisure, smiling in a pleasant contempt and good-humoured superiority, 
and thanking Heaven for his increased lights, he will shut the book, 
and be a fool as his fathers were before him. 

It runs in the blood. Well hast thou said, 0 ragged Macaire, — 
“ Le jour va passer, mais les badauds ne passebont pas.” 


LITTLE POINSINET 


ABOUT the year 1760, there lived, at Paris, a little fellow, who 
was the darling of all the wags of his acquaintance. Nature 
^ seemed, in the formation of this little man, to have amused 
herself, by giving loose to half a hundred of her most comical caprices. 
He had some wit and drollery of his own, which sometimes rendered 
his sallies very amusing ; but, where his friends laughed with him 
once, they laughed at him a thousand times, for he had a fund of 
absurdity in himself that was more pleasant than all the wit in the 
world. He was as proud as a peacock, as wicked as an ape, and 
as silly as a goose. He did not possess one single grain of common 
sense ; but, in revenge, his pretensions were enormous, his ignorance 
vast, and his credulity more extensive still. From his youth up- 
Avards, he had read nothing but the new novels, and the verses in 
the almanacs, which helped him not a little in making, what he 
called, poetry of his OAvn ; for, of course, our little hero was a poet. 
All the common usages of life, all the ways of the world, and all 
the customs of society, seemed to be quite unknown to him ; add 
to these good qualities, a magnificent conceit, a cowardice inconceiv- 
able, and a face so irresistibly comic, that every one who first beheld 
it was compelled to burst out a-laughing, and you will have some 
notion of this strange little gentleman. He was very proud of his 
voice, and uttered all his sentences in the richest tragic tone. He 
Avas little better than a dwarf ; but he elevated his eyebroAA^s, held 
up his neck, walked on the tips of his toes, and gave himself the 
airs of a giant. He had a little pair of bandy legs, which seemed 
much too short to support anything like a human body ; but, by the 
help of these crooked supporters, he thought he could dance like a 
Grace ; and, indeed, fancied all the graces j^ossible Avere to be found 
in his person. His goggle eyes were always rolling about wildly, 
as if in correspondence with the disorder of his little brain ; and 
his countenance thus Avore an expression of perpetual Avonder. 
With such happy natural gifts, he not only fell into all traps 
that Avere laid for him, but seemed almost to go out of his way to 
seek them ; although, to be sure, his friends did not give him 


LITTLE POINSINET 167 

much trouble in that search, for they prepared hoaxes for him 
incessantly. 

One day the wags introduced him to a company of ladies, who, 
though not countesses and princesses exactly, took, nevertheless, 
those titles iipcm themselves for the nonce ; and were all, for the 
same reason, violently smitten with Master Poinsinet’s person. 
One of them, the lady of the house, was especially tender; and, 
seating him by her side at supper, so plied him with smiles, ogles, 
and champagne, that our little hero grew crazed with ecstasy, and 
wild with love. In the midst of his happiness, a cruel knock was 
heard below, accompanied by quick loud talking, swearing, and 
shuffling of feet : you would have thought a regiment was at the 
door. “ 0 heavens ! ” cried the marchioness, starting up, and giving 
to the hand of Poinsinet one parting squeeze ; “ fly — fly, my Poin- 
sinet : ’tis the colonel — my husband ! ” At this, each gentleman of 
the party rose, and, drawing his rapier, vowed to cut his way 
through the colonel and all his mousquetaireSj or die, if need be, by 
the side of Poinsinet. 

The little fellow was obliged to lug out his sword too, and went 
shuddering downstairs, heartily repenting of his passion for mar- 
chionesses. When the party arrived in the street, they found, sure 
enough, a dreadful company of mousquetaires, as they seemed, 
ready to oppose their passage. Swords crossed,— torches blazed; 
and, with the most dreadful shouts and imprecations, the contending 
parties rushed upon one another ; the friends of Poinsinet surround- 
ing and supporting that little warrior, as the French knights did 
King Francis at Pavia, otherwise the poor fellow certainly would 
have fallen down in the gutter from fright. 

But the combat was suddenly interrupted ; for the neighbours, 
who knew nothing of the trick going on, and thought the brawl 
was real, had been screaming with all their might for the police, 
who began about this time to arrive. Directly they appeared, 
friends and enemies of Poinsinet at once took to their heels; and, in 
this part of the transaction, at least, our hero himself showed that 
he was equal to the longest-legged grenadier that ever ran away. 

Wlien, at last, those little bandy legs of his had borne him 
safely to his lodgings, all Poinsinet’s friends crowded round him, 
to congratulate him on his escape and his valour. 

“ Egad, how he pinked that great red-haired fellow ! ” said one. 

“ No ; did I ” said Poinsinet. 

“Did you? Psha ! don’t try to play the modest, and humbug 
us ; you know you did. I suppose you will say, next, that you 
were not for three minutes point to point with Cartentierce himself, 
the most dreadful swordsman of the army.” 


168 


THE PARIS SKETCH BOOK 


“Why, you see,” says Poinsinet, quite delighted, “it was so 
dark that I did not know with whom I was engaged ; although, 
corbleu, I did for one or two of the fellows.” And after a little 
more of such conversation, during which he was fully persuaded 
that he had done for a dozen of the enemy at least, Poinsinet went 
to bed, his little person trembling with fright and pleasure ; and 
he fell asleep, and dreamed of rescuing ladies, and destroying 
monsters, like a second Amadis de Caul. 

When he awoke in the morning, he found a party of his friends 
in his room ; one was examining his coat and waistcoat ; another 
was casting many curious glances at his inexpressibles. “Look 
here ! ” said this gentleman, holding up the garment to the light ; 
“ one — two — three gashes ! I am hanged if the cowards did not 
aim at Poinsinet’s legs ! There are four holes in the sword-arm 
of his coat, and seven have gone right through coat and waist- 
coat. Good Heaven ! Poinsinet, have you had a surgeon to your 
wounds 1 ” 

“ Wounds ! ” said the little man, springing up, “ I don’t know 
— that is, I hope — that is — 0 Lord ! 0 Lord ! I hope I’m not 
wounded ! ” and, after a proper examination, he discovered he 
was not. 

“ Thank Heaven ! thank Heaven ! ” said one of the wags (who, 
indeed, during the slumbers of Poinsinet had been occupied in 
making these very holes through the garments of that individual), 
“ if you have escaped, it is by a miracle. Alas ! alas ! all your 
enemies have not been so lucky.” 

“ How ! is anybody wounded ? ” said Poinsinet. 

“ My dearest friend, prepare yourself ; that unhappy man who 
came to revenge his menaced honour — that gallant officer — that 
injured husband. Colonel Count de Cartentierce ” 

“Well?” 

“Is NO MOKE ! he died this morning, pierced through with 
nineteen wounds from your hand, and calling upon his country to 
revenge his murder.” 

When this awful sentence was pronounced, all the auditory 
gave a pathetic and sinudtaneous sob ; and as for Poinsinet, he 
sank back on his bed with a howl of terror, which would have 
melted a Visigoth to tears, — or to laughter. As soon as his terror 
and remorse had, in some degree, subsided, his comrades spoke to 
him of the necessity of making his escape ; and, huddling on his 
clothes, and bidding them all a tender adieu, he set off, inconti- 
nently, without his breakfast, for England, America, or Russia, 
not knowing exactly which. 

One of his companions agreed to accompany him on a part of 


LITTLE POINSINET 


169 

this journey, — that is, as far as the barrier of St. Denis, which is, 
as everybody knows, on the highroad to Dover ; and there, being 
tolerably secure, they entered a tavern for breakfast ; which meal, 
the last that he ever was to take, perhaps, in his native city, 
Poinsinet was just about to discuss, when, behold ! a gentleman 
entered the apartment where Poinsinet and his friend were seated, 
and, drawing from his pocket a paper, with “ Au nom du Roy ” 
flourished on the top, read from it, or rather from Poinsinet’s own 
figure, his exact signalement, laid his hand on his shoulder, and 
arrested him in the name of the King, and of the provost-marshal 
of Paris. “ I arrest you, sir,” said he gravely, “ with regret ; you 
have slain, with seventeen wounds, in single combat. Colonel Count 
de Cartentierce, one of his Majesty’s household ; and, as his 
murderer, you fall under the immediate authority of the provost- 
marshal, and die without trial or benefit of clergy.” 

You may fancy how . the poor little man’s appetite fell when he 
heard this speech. “In the provost-marshal’s hands'?” said his 
friend : “ then it is all over, indeed ! When does my poor friend 
suffer, sir 1 ” 

“ At half-past six o’clock tlie day after to-morrow,” said the 
officer, sitting down, and helping himself to wine. “ But stop,” 
said he suddenly ; “ sure I can’t mistake '? Yes — no — yes, it is. My 
dear friend, my dear Durand ! don’t you recollect your old school- 
fellow, Antoine '? ” And herewith the officer flung himself into the 
arms of Durand, Poinsinet’s comrade, and they performed a most 
affecting scene of friendship. 

“ This may be of some service to you,” whispered Durand to 
Poinsinet ; and, after some further parley, he asked the officer when 
he was bound to deliver up his prisoner ; and, hearing that he was 
not called upon to appear at the Marsh alsea before six o’clock at 
night. Monsieur Durand prevailed upon Monsieur Antoine to wait 
until that hour, and in the meantime to allow his prisoner to 
walk about the town in his company. This request was, with a 
little difficulty, granted ; and poor Poinsinet begged to be carried 
to the houses of his various friends, and bid them farewell. Some 
were aware of the trick that had been played upon him ; others were 
not ; but the poor little man’s credulity was so great, that it was 
impossible to undeceive him ; and he went from house to house 
bewailing his fate, and followed by the complaisant marshal’s officer. 

The news of his death he received with much more meekness 
than could have been expected ; but what he could not reconcile 
himself to was, the idea of dissection afterwards. “ What can they 
want with me 1 ” cried the poor wretch, in an unusual fit of candour. 
“ I am very small and ugly ; it would be different if I were a tall 


170 


THE PARIS SKETCH BOOK 


fine-looking fellow.” But he was given to understand that beauty 
made very little difference to the surgeons, who, on the contrary, 
would, on certain occasions, prefer a deformed man to a handsome 
one ; for science was much advanced by the study of such monstrosi- 
ties. With tliis reason Poinsinet was obliged to be content ; and so 
paid his rounds of visits, and repeated his dismal adieux. 

The officer of the provost-marshal, however amusing Poinsinet’s 
woes might have been, began, by this time, to grow very weary of 
them, and gave him more than one opportunity to escape. He 
would stop at shop-windows, loiter round corners, and look up in 
the sky, but all in vain : Poinsinet would not escape, do what the 
other would. At length, luckily, about dinner-time, the officer met 
one of Poinsinet’s friends, and his own : and the three agreed to dine 
at a tavern, as they had breakfasted ; and here the officer, who vowed 
that he had been up for five weeks incessantly, fell suddenly asleep 
in the profoundest fatigue ; and Poinsinet was persuaded, after much 
hesitation on his part, to take leave of him. 

And now, this danger overcome, another was to be avoided. 
Beyond a doubt the police were after him, and how was he to avoid 
them 1 He must be disguised, of course ; and one of liis friends, a 
tall gaunt lawyer’s clerk, agreed to jjrovide him with habits. 

So little Poinsinet dressed himself out in the clerk’s dingy black 
suit, of which the knee-breeches hung down to his heels, and tlie 
waist of the coat reached to the calves of his legs ; and, furthermore, 
he blacked his eyebrows, and wore a huge black periwig, in which 
his friend vowed that no one could recognise him. But the most 
painful incident, with regard to the periwig, was, that Poinsinet, 
whose solitary beauty — if beauty it might be called — was a head of 
copious curling yellow hair, was compelled to snip off every one of 
his golden locks, and to rub the bristles with a black dye ; “ for if 
your wig were to come off,” said the lawyer, “ and your fair hair to 
tumble over your shoulders, every man would know, or at least 
suspect you.” So off the locks were cut, and in his black suit and 
periwig little Poinsinet went abroad. 

His friends had their cue ; and when he appeared amongst them, 
not one seemed to know him. He was taken into companies where 
his character was discussed before him, and his wonderful escape 
spoken of. At last he was introduced to the very officer of the 
provost-marshal who had taken him into custody, and who told him 
that he had been dismissed the provost’s service, in consequence of 
the escape of the prisoner. Now, for the first time, jjoor Poinsinet 
thought himself tolerably safe, and blessed his kind friends who had 
procured for him such a complete disguise. How this affair ended 
I know not : — whether some new lie was coined to account for his 



POINSINET IN DISGUISE 








LITTLE POINSINET 


171 


release, or whether he was simply told that he had been hoaxed : it 
mattered little ; for the little man was quite as ready to be hoaxed 
the next day. 

Poinsinet was one day invited to dine with one of the servants 
of the Tuileries ; and, before his arrival, a person in company had 
been decorated with a knot of lace and a gold key, such as chamber- 
lains wear ; he was introduced to Poinsinet as the Count de Truchses, 
chamberlain to the King of Prussia. After dinner the conversation 
fell upon the Count’s visit to Paris ; when his Excellency, with a 
mysterious air, vowed that he had only come for pleasure. “It is 
mighty well,” said a third person, “ and, of course, we can’t cross- 
question your Lordship too closely ; ” but at the same time it was 
hinted to Poinsinet that a person of such consequence did not travel 
for nothing^ with which opinion Poinsinet solemnly agreed ; and 
indeed it was borne out by a subsequent declaration of the Count, 
who condescended, at last, to tell the company, in confidence, that 
he had a mission, and a most important one — to find, namely, 
among the literary men of France, a governor for the Prince Royal 
of Prussia. The company seemed astonished that the King had not 
made choice of Voltaire or D’Alembert, and mentioned a dozen other 
distinguished men who might be competent to this important duty ; 
but the Count, as may be imagined, found objections to every one 
of them ; and, at last, one of the guests said, that, if his Prussian 
Majesty was not particular as to age, he knew a person more fitted 
for the place than any other who could be found, — his honourable 
friend, M. Poinsinet, was the individual to whom he alluded. 

“ Good heavens ! ” cried the Count, “ is it possible that the 
celebrated Poinsinet would take such a place"? I would give the 
world to see him ! ” And you may fancy how Poinsinet simpered 
and blushed wlien the introduction immediately took place. 

The Count protested to him that the King would be charmed to 
know him ; and added, that one of his operas (for it must be told 
that our little friend was a vaudeville-maker by trade) had been 
acted seven-and-twenty times at the theatre at Potsdam. His 
Excellency then detailed to him all the honours and privileges which 
the governor of the Prince Royal might expect ; and all the guests 
encouraged the little man’s vanity, by asking him for his protection 
and favour. In a short time our hero grew so inflated with pride 
and vanity, that he was for patronising the chamberlain himself, 
who proceeded to inform him that he was furnished with all the 
necessary powers by his sovereign, who had specially enjoined him 
to confer upon the future governor of his son the Royal order of the 
Black Eagle. 

Poinsinet, delighted, was ordered to kneel down ; and the Count 


172 


THE PARIS SKETCH BOOK 


produced a large yellow riband, which he hung over his shoulder, 
and which was, he declared, the grand cordon of the order. You 
must fancy Poinsinet’s face, and excessive delight at this ; as for 
describing them, nobody can. For four-and-twenty hours the happy 
chevalier paraded through Paris with this flaring yellow riband ; 
and he was not undeceived until his friends had another trick in 
store for him. 

He dined one day in the company of a man who understood a 
little of the noble art of conjuring, and performed some clever tricks 
on the cards. Poinsinet’s organ of wonder was enormous ; he looked 
on with the gravity and awe of a child, and thought the man’s 
tricks sheer miracles. It wanted no more to set his companions 
to work. 

“ Who is this wonderful man h ” said he to his neighbour. 

“ Why,” said tlie other mysteriously, “ one hardly knows who 
he is ; or, at least, one does not like to say to such an indiscreet 
fellow as you are.” Poinsinet at once swore to be secret. “ Well, 
then,” said his friend, “ you will hear that man— that wonderful 
man — called by a name which is not his : his real name is Acosta ; 
he is a Portuguese Jew, a Rosicrucian, and Cabalist of the first 
order, and compelled to leave Lisbon for fear of the Inquisition. 
He performs here, as you see, some extraordinary things, occa- 
sionally ; but the master of the house, who loves him excessively, 
would not for the world that his name should be made public.” 

“ Ah, bah ! ” said Poinsinet, who affected the hel esprit ; “ you 
don’t mean to say that you believe in magic, and cabalas, and such 
trash '! ” 

“Do I not? You shall judge for yourself.” And, accordingly, 
Poinsinet was presented to the magician, who pretended to take 
a vast liking for him, and declared that he saw in him certain 
marks which would infallibly lead him to great eminence in the 
magic art, if he chose to study it. 

Dinner was served, and Poinsinet placed by the side of the 
miracle-worker, who became very confidential with him, and pro- 
mised him — -ay, before dinner was over — a remarkable instance of 
his power. Nobody, on this occasion, ventured to cut a single joke 
against poor Poinsinet ; nor could he fancy that any trick was 
intended against him, for the demeanour of the society towards 
him was perfectly grave and respectful, and the conversation serious. 
On a sudden, however, somebody exclaimed, “Where is Poinsinet? 
Did any one see him leave the room ? ” 

All the company exclaimed how singular the disappearance 
was ; and Poinsinet himself, growing alarmed, turned round to 
his neighbour, and was about to explain. 


LITTLE POINSINET 


173 


“ Hush ! ” said the magician, in a whisper ; “ I told you that 
you should see what I could do. / have made you invisible ; be 
quiet, and you shall see some more tricks that I shall play with 
these fellows.” 

Poinsinet remained then silent and listened to his neighboirrs, 
who agreed, at last, that he was a quiet orderly personage, and had 
left the table early, being unwilling to drink too much. Presently 
they ceased to talk about him, and resumed their conversation upon 
other matters. 

At first it was very quiet and grave, but the master of the 
house brought back the talk to the subject of Poinsinet, and uttered 
all sorts of abuse concerning him. He begged the gentleman, who 
had introduced such a little scamp into his house, to bring him 
thither no more : whereupon the other took up, warmly, Poinsinet’s 
defence ; declared that he was a man of the greatest merit, frequent- 
ing the best society, and remarkable for his talents as well as his 
virtues. 

“ Ah ! ” said Poinsinet to the magician, quite charmed at what 
he heard, “ however shall I thank you, my dear sir, for thus show- 
ing me who my true friends are 1 ” 

The magician promised him still further favours in prospect ; 
and told him to look out now, for he was about to throw all the 
company into a temporary fit of madness, which, no doubt, would 
be very amusing. 

In consequence, all the company, who had heard every syllable 
of the conversation, began to perform the most extraordinary antics, 
much to the delight of Poinsinet. One asked a nonsensical ques- 
tion, and the other delivered an answer not at all to the purpose. 
If a man asked for a drink they poured him out a pepper-box or a 
napkin : they took a pinch of snuff, and swore it was excellent 
wine ; and vowed that the bread was the most delicious mutton 
ever tasted. The little man was delighted. 

“ Ah ! ” said he, “ these fellows are prettily punished for their 
rascally backbiting of me ! ” 

“ Grentlemen,” said the host, “ I shall now give you some cele- 
brated champagne,” and he poured out to each a glass of water. 

“ Good heavens ! ” said one, spitting it out, with the most 
horrible grimace, “ where did you get this detestable claret 1 ” 

“ Ah, faugh ! ” said a second, “ I never tasted such vile corked 
burgundy in all my days ! ” and he threw the glass of water into 
Poinsinet’s face, as did half-a-dozen of the other guests, drenching 
the poor wretch to the skin. To complete this pleasant illusion, 
two of the guests fell to boxing across Poinsinet, who received a 
number of the blows, and received them with the patience of a 


174 


THE PARIS SKETCH BOOK 


fakir, feeling himself more flattered by the precious privilege of 
beholding this scene invisible, than hurt by the blows and buffets 
which the mad company bestowed upon him. 

The fame of this adventure spread quickly over Paris, and all 
the world longed to have at their houses the representation of 
Poinsinet the Invisible. The servants and the whole company used 
to be put up to the trick ; and Poinsinet, who believed in his in- 
visibility as much as he did in his existence, went about with his 
friend and protector the magician. People, of course, pretended 
never to see him, and Avould very often not talk of him at all for 
some time, but hold sober conversation about anything else in the 
Avorld. When dinner was served, of course there was no cover laid 
for Poinsinet, who carried about a little stool, on which he sat by 
the side of the magician, and always ate off his plate. Everybody 
was astonished at the magician’s appetite and at the quantity of 
wine he drank ; as for little Poinsinet, he never once suspected any 
trick, and had such a confidence in his magician, that, I do believe, 
if the latter had told him to fling himself out of window, he would 
have done so, without the slightest trepidation. 

Among other mystifications in which the Portuguese enchanter 
plunged him, was one which used to afford always a good deal of 
amusement. He informed Poinsinet, with great mystery, that he 
was not himself ; he was not, that is to say, that ugly deformed 
little monster, called Poinsinet ; but that his birth was most illus- 
trious, and his real name Polycarte. He was, in fact, the son of a 
celebrated magician ; but other magicians, enemies of his father, had 
changed him in his cradle, altering his features into their present 
hideous shape, in order that a silly old fellow, called Poinsinet, 
might take him to be his own son, w^hich little monster the magician 
had likewise spirited away. 

The poor wretch was sadly cast down at this ; for he tried to 
fancy that his person was agreeable to the ladies, of whom he was 
one of the warmest little admirers possible; and to console him 
somewhat, the magician told him that his real shape was exquisitely 
beautiful, and as soon as he should appear in it, all the beauties in 
Paris would be at his feet. But how to regain it 1 “ Oh for one 

minute of that beauty ! ” cried the little man ; “ what would he not 
give to appear under that enchanting form ! ” The magician here- 
upon waved his stick over his head, pronounced some awful magical 
words, and twisted him round three times ; at the third twist, the 
men in company seemed struck with astonishment and envy, the 
ladies clasped their hands, and some of them kissed his. Everybody 
declared his beauty to be supernatural. 

Poinsinet, enchanted, rushed to a glass. “ Fool ! ” said the 


LITTLE POINSINET 


175 


magician; “do you suppose that you can sec the change? My 
power to render you invisible, beautiful, or ten times more hideous 
even than you are, extends only to otliers, not to you. You may look 
a thousand times in the glass, and you will only see those deformed 
limbs and disgusting features vuth which devilish malice has dis- 
guised you.” Poor little Poinsinet looked and came back in tears. 
“ But,” resumed the magician,— “ ha, ha, ha ! — / know a way in 
which to disappoint the machinations of these fiendish magi.” 

“ Oh, my benefactor ! — my great master ! — for Heaven’s sake 
tell it ! ” gasped Poinsinet. 

“ Look you — it is this. A prey to enchantment and demoniac 
art all your life long, you have lived until your present age perfectly 
satisfied ; nay, absolutely vain of a person the most singularly 
hideous that ever walked the earth ! ” 

“ /s it ? ” whispered Poinsinet. “ Indeed and indeed I didn’t 
think it so bad ! ” 

“He acknowledges it ! he acknowledges it!” roared the magician. 
“ Wretch, dotard, owl, mole, miserable buzzard ! I have no reason 
to tell thee now that thy form is monstrous, that children cry, that 
cowards turn pale, that teeming matrons shudder to behold it. It 
is not thy fault that thou art thus ungainly : but wherefore so 
blind? wherefore so conceited of thyself? I tell thee, Poinsinet, 
that over every fresh instance of thy vanity the hostile enchanters 
rejoice and triumph. As long as thou art blindly satisfied with 
thyself ; as long as thou pretendest, in thy present odious shape, to 
win the love of aught above a negress ; nay, further still, until thou 
hast learned to regard that face, as others do, with the most in- 
tolerable horror and disgust, to abuse it when thou seest it, to 
despise it, in short, and treat that miserable disguise in which the 
enchanters have wrapped thee with the strongest hatred and scorn, 
so long art thou destined to wear it.” 

Such speeches as these, continually repeated, caused Poinsinet 
to be fully convinced of his ugliness ; he used to go about in com- 
panies, and take every opportunity of inveighing against himself; 
he made verses and epigrams against himself ; he talked about 
“that dwarf, Poinsinet;” “that buffoon, Poinsinet;” “that con- 
ceited hump-backed Poinsinet ; ” and he would spend hours before 
the glass, abusing his own face as he saw it reflected there, and 
vowing that he grew handsomer at every fresh epithet that he 
uttered. 

Of course the wags, from time to time, used to give him every 
possible encouragement, and declared that, since this exercise, his 
person was amazingly improved. The ladies, too, began to be so 
excessively fond of him, that the little fellow was obliged to caution 


176 


THE PARIS SKETCH BOOK 


them at last — for the good, as he said, of society ; he recommended 
them to draw lots, for he could not gratify them all ; but promised, 
when his metamorphosis was complete, that the one chosen should 
become the happy Mrs. Poinsinet ; or, to speak more correctly, 
Mrs. Polycarte. 

I am sorry to say, however, that, on the score of gallantry, 
Poinsinet was never quite convinced of the hideousness of his ap- 
pearance. He had a number of adventures, accordingly, with the 
ladies, but, strange to say, the husbands or fathers were always 
interrupting him. On one occasion he was made to pass the night 
in a slipper-bath full of water; where, although he had all his 
clothes on, he declared that he nearly caught his death of cold. 
Another night, in revenge, the poor fellow 

“dans le simple appareil 

D’une beaute qu’on vient d’arracher au sommeil,” 

spent a number of hours contemplating the beauty of the moon on 
the tiles. These adventures are pretty numerous in the memoirs 
of M. Poinsinet; but the fact is, that people in France were a 
great deal more philosophical in those days than the English are 
now, so that Poinsinet’s loves must be passed over, as not being 
to our taste. His magician was a great diver, and told Poinsinet 
the most wonderful tales of his two minutes’ absence under water. 
These two minutes, he said, lasted through a year, at least, which 
he spent in the company of a naiad, more beautiful than Venus, 
in a palace more splendid than even Versailles. Fired by the 
description, Poinsinet used to dip, and dip, but he never was 
known to make any mermaid acquaintances, although he fully 
believed that one day he should find such. 

The invisible joke was brought to an end by Poinsinet’s too 
great reliance on it ; for being, as we have said, of a very tender 
and sanguine disposition, he one day fell in love with a lady in 
whose company he dined, and whom he actually proposed to 
embrace ; but the fair lady, in the hurry of the moment, forgot to 
act up to the joke ; and instead of receiving Poinsinet’s salute with 
calmness, grew indignant, called him an impudent little scoundrel, 
and lent him a sound box on the ear. With this slap the invisi- 
bility of Poinsinet disappeared, the gnomes and genii left him, and 
he settled down into common life again,' and was hoaxed only by 
vulgar means. 

A vast number of pages might be filled with narratives of the 
tricks that were played upon him : but they resemble each other 
a good deal, as may be imagined, and the chief point remarkable 
about them is the wondrous faith of Poinsinet. After being intro- 


LITTLE POINSINET 


177 


duced to the Prussian ambassador at the Tuileries, he was pre- 
sented to the Turkish envoy at the Place Vendome, who received 
him in state, surrounded by the officers of his establishment, all 
dressed in the smartest dresses that the wardrobe of the Opdra 
Comique could funiish. 

As the greatest honour that could be done to him, Poinsinet 
was invited to eat, and a tray was produced, on which w^as a 
delicate dish prepared in the Turkish manner. This consisted of 
a reasonable quantity of mustard, salt, cinnamon and ginger, nut- 
megs and cloves, with a couple of tablespoonfuls of cayenne pepper, 
to give the whole a flavour ; and Poinsinet’s countenance may be 
imagined when he introduced into his mouth a quantity of this 
exquisite compound. 

“The best of the joke was,” says the author who records so 
many of the pitiless tricks practised upon poor Poinsinet, “ that 
the little man used to laugh at them afterwards himself with 
perfect good-humour ; and lived in the daily hope that, from being 
the sufferer, he should become the agent in these hoaxes, and do 
to others as he had been done by.” Passing, therefore, one day, 
on the Pont Neuf, with a friend, who had been one of the greatest 
performers, the latter said to him, “ Poinsinet, my good fellow, 
thou hast suffered enough, and thy sufferings have made thee so 
wise and cunning, that thou art worthy of entering among the 
initiated, and hoaxing in thy turn.” Poinsinet was charmed ; he 
asked when he should be initiated, and how? It was told him 
that a moment would suffice, and that the ceremony might be per- 
formed on the spot. At this news, and according to order, Poin- 
sinet flung himself straightway on his knees in the kennel ; and 
the other, drawing his sword, solemnly initiated him into the 
sacred order of jokers. From that day the little man believed 
himself received into the society ; and to this having brought him, 
let us bid him a respectful adieu. 


THE BEVIES WAGER 


I T was the hour of the night when there be none stirring save 
churchyard ghosts — when all doors are closed except the gates 
of graves, and all eyes shut but the eyes of wicked men. 

When there is no sound on the earth except the ticking of the 
grasshopper, or the croaking of obscene frogs in the poole. 

And no light except that of the blinking starres, and the wicked 
and devilish wills-o’-the-wisp, as they gambol among the marshes, 
and lead good men astraye. 

When there is nothing moving in heaven except the owle, as he 
flappeth along lazily ; or the magician, as he rides on his infernal 
broomsticke, whistling through the aire like the arrowes of a York- 
shire archere. 

It was at this hour (namely, at twelve o’clock of the night) 
that two beings went winging through the black clouds, and holding 
converse with each other. 

Now the first was Mercurius, the messenger, not of gods (as the 
heathens feigned), but of daemons ; and the second, with whom he 
held company, was the soul of Sir Roger de Rollo, the brave knight. 
Sir Roger was Count of Chauchigny, in Champagne ; Seigneur of 
Santerre, Villacerf and aultre lieux. But the great die as well as 
the humble ; and nothing remained of brave Roger now but his 
coffin and his deathless soul. 

And Mercurius, in order to keep fast the soul, his companion, 
had bound him round the neck with his tail ; which, when the soul 
was stubborn, he would draw so tight as to strangle him well-nigh, 
sticking into him the barbed point thereof ; whereat the poor soul. 
Sir Rollo, would groan and roar lustily. 

Now they two had come together from the gates of purgatorie, 
being bound to those regions of fire and flame where poor sinners 
fry and roast in ssecula sseculorum. 

“It is hard,” said the poor Sir Rollo, as they went gliding 
through the clouds, “that I should thus be condemned for ever, 
and all for want of a single ave.” 

“ How, Sir Soul ? ” said the daemon. 


“You were on earth so 


179 


• • THE DEVIL’S WAGER ; 

wicked, that not one, or a million of aves, could suffice to keep from 
hell-flame a creature like tliee ; but cheer up and be merry ; thou 
wilt be but a subject of our lord the Devil, as am I ; and, perhaps, 
thou wilt be advanced to posts of honour, as am I also : ” and to 
show his authoritie, he lashed with his tail the ribbes of the 
wretched Rollo. 

“Nevertheless, sinner as I am, one more ave would have saved 
me; for my sister, who was Abbess of St. Mary of Chauchigny, 
did so prevail, by her prayer and good works, for my lost and 
wretched soul, that every day I felt the pains of purgatory de- 
crease : the ])itchforks which, on my first entry, had never ceased 
to vex and torment my poor carcass, were now not applied above 
once a week ; the roasting had ceased, the boiling had discon- 
tinued; only a certain warmth was kept up, to remind me of my 
situation.” 

“ A gentle stewe,” said the daemon. 

“Yea, truly, I was but in a stew, and all from the effects of 
the prayers of my l)lessed sister. But yesterday, he who watched 
me in purgatory told me, that yet another prayer from my sister, 
and my bonds should be unloosed, and I, who am now a devil, 
should have been a blessed angel.” 

“ And the other ave ? ” said the daemon. 

“ She died, sir — my sister died — death choked her in the middle 
of the prayer.” And hereat the wretched spirit began to weepe and 
whine piteously ; his salt tears falling over his beard, and scalding 
the tail of Mercurius the devil. 

“ It is, in truth, a hard case,” said the daemon ; “ but I know 
of no remedy save patience, and for that you will have an excellent 
opportunity in your lodgings below.” 

“ But I have relations,” said the Earl ; “ my kinsman Randal, 
who has inherited my lands, will he not say a prayer for his 
uncle 1 ” 

“ Thou didst hate and oppress him when living.” 

“It is true ; but an ave is not much ; his sister, my niece, 
Matilda ” 

“ You shut her in a convent, and hanged her lover.” 

“ Had I not reason ? besides, has she not others ? ” 

“ A dozen, without doubt. 

“ And my brother, the prior ? ” 

“ A liege subject of my Lord the Devil : he never opens his 
mouth, except to utter an oath, or to swallow a cup of wine.” 

‘ And yet, if but one of these would but say an ave for me, I 
should be saved.” 

“Aves with them are rarae aves,” replied Mercurius, wagging 


180 


THE PARIS SKETCH BOOK 


his tail right waggishly; “and, what is more, I will lay thee any 
wager that not one of these will say a prayer to save thee.” 

“ I would wager willingly,” responded he of Chauchigny ; “ hut 
what has a poor soul like me to stake 1 ” 

“ Every evening, after the day’s roasting, my Lord Satan giveth 
a eup of cold water to his servants ; I will bet thee thy water for a 
year, that none of the three will pray for thee.” 

“ Done ! ” said Kollo. 

“ Done ! ” said the dsemon ; “ and here, if I mistake not, is thy 
castle of Chauchigny.” 

Indeed, it was true. The soul, on looking down, perceived the 
tall towers, the courts, the stables, and the fair gardens of the 
castle. Although it was past midnight, there was a blaze of light 
in the banqueting-hall, and a lamp burning in the open window of 
the Lady Matilda 

“ With whom shall we begin 1 ” said the daemon : “ with the 
Baron or the lady 1 ” 

“ With the lady, if you will.” 

“ Be it so ; her window is open, let us enter.” 

So they descended, and entered silently into Matilda’s chamber. 

The young lady’s eyes were fixed so intently on a little clock, 
that it was no wonder that she did not perceive the entrance of her 
two visitors. Her fair cheek rested on her white arm, and her 
white arm on the cushion of a great chair in which she sat, pleasantly 
supported by sweet thoughts and swan’s down ; a lute was at her 
side, and a book of prayers lay under the table (for piety is always 
modest). Like the amorous Alexander, she sighed and looked (at 
the clock) — and sighed for ten minutes or more, when she softly 
breathed the word “ Edward ! ” 

At this the soul of the Baron was wroth. “ The jade is at her 
old pranks,” said he to the devil ; and then addressing Matilda : “I 
pray thee, sweet niece, turn thy thoughts for a moment from that 
villainous page, E<lward, and give tliem to thine affectionate uncle.” 

When she heard the voice, and saw the awful apparition of her 
uncle (for a year’s sojourn in purgatory had not increased the comeli- 
ness of his appearance), she started, screamed, and of course fainted. 

But the devil Mercurius soon restored her to herself. “ What’s 
o’clock 1 ” said she, as soon as she had recovered from her fit : “is 
he come?” 

“Not thy lover, Maude, but thine uncle — that is, his soul. 
For the love of Heaven, listen to me ; I have been frying in purgatory 
for a year past, and should have been in heaven but for the want of 
a single ave.” 


THE DEVIL’S WAGER 


181 


“ I will say it for thee to-morrow, uncle.” 

“ To-night, or never.” 

“ Well, to-night be it : ” and she requested the devil Mercurius 
to give her the prayer-book from under the table ; but he had no 
sooner touched the holy book than he dropped it with a shriek and 
a yell. It was hotter, he said, than his master Sir Lucifer’s own 
particular pitchfork. And the lady was forced to begin her ave 
without the aid of her missal. 

At the commencement of her devotions the daemon retired, and 
carried with him the anxious soul of poor Sir Roger de Rollo. 

The lady knelt down — she sighed deeply ; she looked again at 
the clock, and began — 

“ Ave Maria.” 

When a lute was heard under the window, and a sweet voice 
singing — 

“ Hark ! ” said Matilda. 

“ Now the toils of day are over, 

And the sun hath sunk to rest, 

Seeking, like a fiery lover. 

The bosom of the blushing West — 

The faithful night keeps watch and ward. 

Raising the moon, her silver shiel<l, 

And summoning the stars to guard 
The slumbers of my fair Mathilde ! ’ 

“ For mercy’s sake ! ” said Sir Rollo, “ the ave first, and next 
the song.” 

So Matilda again dutifully betook her to her devotions, and 
began — 

“ Ave Maria gratis plena ! ” but the music began again, and the 
prayer ceased of course. 

“ The faithful night ! Now all things lie 
Hid by her mantle dark and dim, 

In pious hope I hither hie, 

And humbly chaunt mine ev’ning hymn. 

Thou art my prayer, my saint, my shrine ! 

(For never holy pilgrim kneel’d, 

Or wept at feet more pure than thine), 

My virgin love, my sweet Mathilde ! ” 

“Virgin love!” said the Baron. “Upon my soul, this is too 
bad ! ” and he thought of the lady’s lover whom he had caused to 
be hanged. 


182 


THE PARIS SKETCH BOOK 

But she only thought of him wlio stood singing at her window. 

“Niece Matilda!” cried Sir Roger agonisedly, “wilt thou listen 
to the lies of an impudent page, whilst thine uncle is waiting but a 
dozen words to make him happy % ” 

At this Matilda grew angry : “ Edward is neither impudent nor 
a liar, Sir Uncle, and I will listen to the end of the song.” 

“ Come away,” saith Mercurius ; “ he hath yet got wield, field, 
sealed, congealed, and a dozen other rhymes beside; and after the 
song will come the supper.” 

So the poor soul was obliged to go ; while the lady listened, and 
the page sang away till morning. 

“ My virtues have been my ruin,” said poor Sir Rollo, as he 
and Mercurius slunk silently out of the window. “ Had I hanged 
that knave Edward, as I did the page his predecessor, my niece 
would have sung mine ave, and I should have been by this time an 
angel in heaven.” 

“He is reserved for wiser purposes,” responded the devil : “he 
will assassinate your successor, the Lady Mathilde’s brother ; and, in 
consequence, will be hanged. In the love of the lady he will be suc- 
ceeded by a gardener, who will be replaced by a monk, who will give 
way to an ostler, who will be deposed by a Jew pedlar, who shall, 
finally, yield to a noble earl, the future husband of the fair Mathilde. 
So that, you see, instead of having one poor soul a-frying, we may 
now look forward to a goodly harvest for our lord the Devil.” 

The soul of the Baron began to think that his companion knew 
too much for one who would make fair bets ; but there was no help 
for it ; he would not, and he could not, cry off ; and he prayed 
inwardly that the brother might be found more pious than the 
sister. 

But there seemed little chance of this. As they crossed the 
court, lacqueys, with smoking dishes and full jugs, passed and 
repassed continually, although it was long past midnight. On 
entering the hall, they found Sir Randal at the head of a vast table, 
surrounded by a fiercer and more motley collection of individuals 
than had congregated there even in the time of Sir Rollo. The lord 
of the castle had signified “ that it was his Royal pleasure to be 
drunk,” and the gentlemen of his train had obsequiously followed 
their master. Merciuius was delighted with the scene, and relaxed 
his usually rigid countenance into a bland and benevolent smile, 
which became him wonderfully. 

The entrance of Sir Roger, who had been dead about a year, 
and a person with hoofs, horns, and a tail, rather disturbed the 
hilarity of the company. Sir Randal dropped his cup of wine ; and 


THE DEVIL’S WAGER 


183 


Father Peter, the confessor, incontinently paused in the midst of a 
profane song, with which he was amusing the society. 

“ Holy Mother ! ” cried he, “ it is Sir Roger.” 

“ Alive ! ” screamed Sir Randal. 

“ No, my lord,” Mercurius said ; “ Sir Roger is dead, but 
cometh on a matter of business ; ami I have the honour to act as 
his counsellor and attendant.” 

“Nephew,” said Sir Roger, “the daemon saith justly; I am 
come on a trifling aflair, in which thy service is essential.” 

“ I will do anything, uncle, in my power.” 

“ Tliou canst give me life, if thou wilt.” But Sir Randal looked 
very blank at this proposition. “ I mean life spiritual, Randal,” 
said Sir Roger ; and thereupon he explained to him the nature of 
the wager. 

Whilst he was telling his story, his companion Mercurius was 
playing all sorts of antics in the hall ; and, by his wit and fun, 
became so popular with this godless crew, that they lost all the fear 
which his first appearance had given them. The friar was wonder- 
fully taken with him, and used his utmost eloquence and endeavours 
to convert the devil ; the knights stopped drinking to listen to the 
argument ; the men-at-arms forbore brawling ; and the wicked little 
pages crowded round the two strange disputants, to hear their edify- 
ing discourse. The ghostly man, however, had little chance in the 
controversy, and certainly little learning to carry it on. Sir Randal 
interrupted him. “ Father Peter,” said he, “ our kinsman is con- 
demned for ever, for want of a single ave : wilt thou say it for 
him ? ” “ Willingly, my lord,” said the monk, “ with my book ; ” 

and accordingly he produced his missal to read, without which aid 
it appeared that the holy father could not manage the desired 
j)rayer. But the crafty Mercurius had, by his devilish art, inserted 
a song in the place of the ave, so that Father Peter, instead of 
chaunting a hymn, sang the following irreverent ditty : — 

“ Some love the matin-chimes, which tell 
, The hour of prayer to sinner : 

Blit better far’s the mid-day bell, 

Which speaks the hour of dinner ; 

For when I see a smoking fish, 

Or capon drown’d in gravy, 

Or noble haunch on silver dish, 

Full glad I sing mine ave. 

My pulpit is an alehouse bench. 

Whereon I sit so jolly : 

A smiling rosy country wench 
My saint and patron holy. 


184 


THE PARIS SKETCH BOOK 


I kiss her cheek so red and sleek, 

I press her ringlets wavy, 

And in her willing ear I speak 
A most religious ave. 

And if I’m blind, yet Heaven is kind, 

And holy saints forgiving ; 

For sure he leads a right good life 
Who thus admires good living. 

Above, they say, our flesh is air. 

Our blood celestial ichor : 

Oh, grant ! ’mid all the changes there, 

They may not change our liquor ! ” 

And with this pious wish the holy confessor tumbled under the 
table in an agony of devout drunkenness ; whilst the knights, the 
men-at-arms, and the wicked little pages, rang out the last verse 
with a most melodious and emphatic glee. “ I am sorry, fair 
uncle,” hiccupped Sir Randal, “ that, in the matter of the ave, we 
could not oblige thee in a more orthodox manner; but the holy 
father has failed, and there is not another man in the hall who hath 
an idea of a prayer.” 

“ It is my own faidt,” said Sir Rollo ; “ for I hanged the last 
confessor.” And he wished his nephew a surly good-night, as he 
prepared to quit the room. 

“ All re voir, gentlemen,” said the devil Mercurius ; and once 
more fixed his tail round the neck of his disappointed companion. 

The spirit of poor Rollo was sadly cast down ; the devil, on the 

contrary, was in high good-humour. He wagged his tail with the 

most satisfied air in the world, and cut a hundred jokes at the 

expense of his poor associate. On they sped, cleaving swiftly 

through the cold night winds, frightening the birds that were 
roosting in the woods, and the owls who were watching in the 
towers. 

In the twinkling of an eye, as it is known, devils can fly 
hundreds of miles : so that almost the same beat of the clock 
Avhich left these two in Champagne, found them hovering over 
Paris. They dropped into the court of the Lazarist Convent, 
and wended their way, through passage and cloister, until they 
reached the door of the prior’s cell. 

Now the prior, Rollo’s brother, was a wicked and malignant 
sorcerer ; his time was spent in conjuring devils and doing wicked 
deeds, instead of fasting, scourging, and singing holy psalms : this 
Mercurius knew ; and he, therefore, was fully at ease as to the final 
result of his wager with ])oor Sir Roger. 



THE CHAPLAIN PUZZLED 











THE DEVIL’S WAGER 


185 


“ You seem to be well acquainted with the road,” said the 
knight. 

“ I have reason,” answered Mercurius, “ having, for a long 
period, had the acquaintance of his reverence, your brother; but 
you have little chance with him.” 

“ And why 1 ” said Sir Rollo. 

“ He is under a bond to my master never to say a prayer, or 
else his soul and his body are forfeited at once.” 

“ Why, thou false and traitorous devil ! ” said the enraged 
knight ; “ and thou knewest this when we made our wager 1 ” 

“ Undoubtedly : do you suppose I would have done so had 
there been any chance of losing 1 ” 

And with this they arrived at Father Ignatius’s door. 

“ Thy cursed presence threw a spell on my niece, and stopped 
the tongue of my nephew’s chaplain ; I do believe that had I seen 
either of them alone, my wager had been won,” 

“ Certainly ; therefore I took good care to go with thee ; how- 
ever, thou mayest see the prior alone, if thou wilt; and lo ! his 
door is open. I will stand without for five minutes, when it will 
be time to commence our journey.” 

It was the poor Baron’s last chance; and he entered his 
brother’s room more for the five minutes’ respite than from any 
hope of success. 

Father Ignatius, the prior, was absorbed in magic calculations : 
he stood in the middle of a circle of skidls, with no garment except 
his long white beard, which reached to his knees ; he was waving 
a silver rod, and muttering imprecations in some horrible tongue. 

But Sir Rollo came forward and interrupted his incantation. 
“ I am,” said he, “ the shade of thy brother, Roger de Rollo ; and 
have come, from pure brotherly love, to warn thee of thy fate.” 

“ Whence earnest thou 1 ” 

“ From the abode of the blessed in Paradise,” replied Sir Roger, 
who was inspired with a sudden thought ; “it was but five minutes 
ago that the Patron Saint of thy Church told me of thy danger, 
and of thy wicked compact with the fiend. ‘ Go,’ said he, ‘ to thy 
miserable brother, and tell him that there is but one way by which 
he may escape from paying the awful forfeit of his bond.’ ” 

“ And how may that be ? ” said the Prior ; “ the false fiend 
hath deceived me ; I have given him my soul, but have received 
no worldly benefit in return. Brother ! dear brother ! how may 
I escape?” 

“ I will tell thee. As soon as I heard the voice of blessed St. 
Mary Lazarus ” (tlie worthy earl had, at a pinch, coined the name 
of a saint), “ I left the clouds, where, with other angels, I was 


186 


THE PARIS SKETCH BOOK 


seated, and sped hither to save thee. ‘ Thy brother,’ said the 
Saint, ‘ hath but one day more to live, when he will become for 
all eternity the subject of Satan ; if he would escape, he must 
boldly break his bond, by saying an ave.’ ” 

“ It is the express condition of the agreement,” said the un- 
happy monk, “I must say no prayer, or that instant I become 
Satan’s, body and soul.” 

“It is the express condition of the Saint,” answered Roger 
fiercely ; “ pray, brother, pray, or thou art lost for ever.” 

So the foolish monk knelt down, and devoutly sang out an ave. 
“ Amen ! ” said Sir Roger devoutly. 

“ Amen ! ” said Mercurius, as, suddenly coming behind, he 
seized Ignatius by his long beard, and flew up with him to the 
top of the church-steeple. 

The monk roared, and screamed, and swore against his brother ; 
l)ut it was of no avail ; Sir Roger smiled kindly on him, and 
said, “ Do not fret, brother ; it must have come to this in a year 
or two.” 

And he flew alongside of Mercurius to the steeple-top : hut this 
time the devil had not his tail round his neck. “ I will let thee 
off thy bet,” said he to the dsemon ; for he could afford, now, to 
be generous. 

“ I believe, my lord,” said the dsemon politely, “ that our ways 
separate here.” Sir Roger sailed gaily upwards ; while Mercurius 
having bound the miserable monk faster than ever, he sank down- 
wards to earth, and perhaps lower. Ignatius was heard roaring 
and screaming as the devil dashed him against the iron spikes and 
buttresses of the church. 


The moral of this story will be given in the second edition. 


MADAME SAND AND THE NEW APOCALYPSE 


I DON’T know an impression more curious than that which is 
formed in a foreigner’s mind, who has been absent from this 
place for two or three years, returns to it, and beholds the 
change which has taken place, in the meantime, in French fashions 
and ways of thinking. Two years ago, for instance, when I left the 
capital, I left the young gentlemen of France with their hair brushed 
en tonj)et in front, and the toes of their boots round ; now the boot- 
toes are pointed, and the hair combed flat, and, parted in the middle, 
falls in ringlets on the fashionable shoulders ; and, in like manner, 
with books as with boots, the fashion has changed considerably, and 
it is not a little curious to contrast the old modes with the new. 
Absurd as was the literary dandyism of those days, it is not a whit 
less absurd now : only the manner is changed, and our versatile 
Frenchmen have passed from one caricature to another. 

The Revolution may be called a caricature of freedom, as the 
Empire was of glory ; and what they borrow from foreigners under- 
goes the same process. They take top-boots and macintoshes from 
across the water, and caricature our fashions; they read a little, 
very little, Shakspeare, and caricature our poetry : and while in 
David’s time art and religion were only a caricature of Heathenism, 
now, on the contrary, these two commodities are imported from 
Germany ; and distorted caricatures originally, are still further 
distorted on passing the frontier. 

I trust in Heaven that German art and religion will take no 
hold in our country (where there is a fund of roast-beef that will 
expel any such humbug in the end) ; but these sprightly Frenchmen 
have relished the mystical doctrines mightily ; and having watched 
the Germans, with their sanctifled looks, and quaint imitations of 
the old times, and mysterious transcendental talk, are aping many 
of their fashions ; as well and solemnly as they can : not very 
solemnly, God wot ; for I think one should always prepare to 
grin when a Frenchman looks particularly grave, being sure that 
there is something false and ridiculous lurking under the owl-like 
solemnity. 


188 


THE PARIS SKETCH BOOK 


AVhen last in Paris, we were in the midst of what was called 
a Catholic reaction. Artists talked of faith in poems and pictures ; 
churches were built here and there; old missals were copied and 
purchased ; and numberless portraits of saints, with as much 
gilding about them as ever was used in the fifteenth century, 
appeared in churches, ladies’ boudoirs, and picture-shops. One or 
two fashionable preachers rose, and were eagerly followed ; the very 
youth of the schools gave up their pipes and billiards for some 
time, and flocked in crowds to Notre Dame, to sit under the feet 
of Lacordaire. I went to visit the church of Notre Dame de 
Lorette yesterday, which was finished in the heat of this Catholic 
rage, and was not a little struck by the similarity of the place to 
the worship celebrated in it, and the admirable manner in which the 
architect has caused his work to express the public feeling of the 
moment. It is a pretty little bijou of a church : it is supported by 
sham marble pillars ; it has a gaudy ceiling of blue and gold, which 
will look very well for some time ; and is filled with gaudy pictures 
and carvings, in# the very pink of the mode. The congregation did 
not offer a bad illustration of the present state of Catholic reaction. 
Two or three stray people were at prayers ; there was no service ; 
a few countrymen and idlers were staring about at the pictures ; 
and the Swiss, the paid guardian of the place, was comfortably and 
appropriately asleep on his bench at the door. I am inclined to 
think the famous reaction is over ; the students have taken to 
their Sunday pipes and billiards again ; and one or two cafes have 
been established, within the last year, that are ten times handsomer 
than Notre Dame de Lorette. 

However, if the immortal Gbrres and the German mystics have 
had their day, there is the immortal Gothe and the Pantheists ; 
and I incline to think that the fashion has set very strongly in 
their favour. Voltaire and the Encyclopmdians are voted, now, 
barhares, and there is no term of reprobation strong enough for 
heartless Humes and Helvetiuses, who lived but to destroy, and 
who only thought to doubt. Wretched as Voltaire’s sneers and 
puns are, I think there is something more manly and earnest even 
in them than in the present muddy French transcendentalism. 
Pantheism is the word now ; one and all have begun to eprouver 
the hesoin of a religious sentiment ; and we are deluged vdth a host 
of gods accordingly. Monsieur de Balzac feels himself to be 
inspired ; Victor Hugo is a god ; Madame Sand is a god ; that 
tawdry man of genius, Jules Janin, who writes theatrical reviews 
for the Dehats^ has divine intimations; and there is scarce a 
beggarly beardless scribbler of poems and prose but tells you, in 
his preface, of the saintete of the sacerdoce litteraire ; or a dirty 



FKKNCH CATHOLICISM. 

{Sketched in the Church of N. D. de Lorette.) 














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MME. SAND AND THE NEW APOCALYPSE 189 

student, sucking tobacco and beer, and reeling home with a grisette 
from the Chaumifere, who is not convinced of the necessity of a 
new “ Messianism,” and will hiccup, to such as will listen, chapters 
of his own drunken Apocalypse. Surely, the negatives of the old 
days were far less dangerous than the assertions of the present ; and 
you may fancy what a religion that must be which has such high 
l)riests. 

There is no reason to trouble the reader with details of the 
lives of many of these prophets and expounders of new revelations. 
Madame Sand, for instance, I do not know personally, and can only 
speak of her from report. True or false, the history, at any rate, 
is not very edifying ; and so may be passed over : but, as a certain 
great philosopher told us, in very humble and simple words, that 
Ave are not to expect to gather grapes from thorns, or figs from 
thistles, we may, at least, demand, in all persons assuming the 
character of moralist or philosopher — order, soberness, and regularity 
of life ; for we are apt to distrust the intellect that we fancy can 
be swayed by circumstance or passion ; and we know how circum- 
stance and passion will sway the intellect : hoAv mortified vanity wdll 
form excuses for itself ; and how temper turns angrily upon conscience, 
that reproves it. How often have we called our judge our enemy, 
because he has given sentence against us ! — Hoav often have Ave 
called the right Avrong, because the right condemns us ! And in the 
lives of many of the bitter foes of the Christian doctrine, can Ave 
find no personal reason for their hostility'? Tlie men in Athens 
said it Avas out of regard for religion that they murdered Socrates ; 
but we haA’'e had time, since then, to reconsider the verdict ; and 
Socrates’s character is pretty pure now, in spite of the sentence 
and the jury of those days. 

The Parisian philosophers will attempt to explain to you the 
changes through Avhich Madame Sand’s mind has passed,' — the 
initiatory trials, labours, and sufferings Avhich she has had to go 
through, — before she reached her present happy state of mental 
illumination. She teaches her Avdsdom in parables, that are, 
mostly, a couple of volumes long ; and began, first, by an eloquent 
attack on marriage, in the charming novel of “ Indiana.” “ Pity,” 
cried she, “for the poor woman Avho, united to a being Avdiose 
brute force makes him her superior, should venture to break the 
bondage which is imposed on her, and allow her heart to be 
free.” 

In support of this claim of pity, she writes two volumes of 
the most exquisite prose. What a tender suffering creature is 
Indiana ; how little her husband appreciates that gentleness which 
he is crushing by his tyranny and brutal scorn ; how natural it is 


190 THE PARIS SKETCH BOOK 

that, in the absence of his sympathy, she, poor clinging confiding 
creature, should seek elsewhere for shelter ; how cautious should 
we be, to call criminal — to visit with too heavy a censure — an act 
which is one of the natural impulses of a tender heart, that seeks 
but for a worthy object of love. But why attempt to tell the tale 
of beautiful Indiana ? Madame Sand has written it so well, that 
not the hardest-hearted husband in Christendom can fail to be 
touched by her sorrows, though he may refuse to listen to her 
argument. Let us grant, for argument’s sake, that the laws of 
marriage, especially the French laws of marriage, press very cruelly 
upon unfortunate women. 

But if one wants to have a question of this, or any nature, 
honestly argued, it is better, surely, to apply to an indifferent 
person as an umpire. For instance, the stealing of pocket-hand- 
kerchiefs or snuffboxes may or may not be vicious; but if we, 
who have not the wit, or will not take the trouble to decide the 
question ourselves, want to hear the real rights of the matter, we 
should not, surely, apply to a pickpocket to know what he thought 
on the point. It might naturally be presumed that he would be 
rather a prejudiced person — particularly as his reasoning, if suc- 
cessful, might get him out of gaol. This is a homely illustration, 
no doubt : all we would urge by it is, that Madame Sand having, 
according to the French newspapers, had a stern husband, and 
also having, according to the newspapers, sought “ sympathy ” 
elsewhere, her arguments may be considered to be somewhat partial, 
and received with some little caution. 

And tell us who have been the social reformers 1 — the haters, 
that is, of the present system, according to which we live, love, 
marry, have children, educate them, and endow them — are they 
yure themselves 1 I do believe not one ; and directly a man begins 
to quarrel with the world and its ways, and to lift up, as he calls 
it, the voice of his despair, and preach passionately to mankind 
about this tyranny of faith, customs, laws ; if we examine what 
the personal character of the preacher is, we begin pretty clearly 
to understand the value of the doctrine. Any one can see why 
Rousseau should be such a whimpering reformer, and Byron such 
a free and easy misanthropist, and why our accomplished Madame 
Sand, who has a genius and eloquence inferior to neither, should 
take the present condition of mankind (French-kind) so much to 
heart, and labour so hotly to set it right. 

After “Indiana” (which, we presume, contains the lady’s 
notions upon wives and husbands) came “Valentine,” which may 
be said to exhibit her doctrine, in regard of young men and maidens, 
to whom the author would accord as we fancy, the same tender 


MME. SAND AND THE NEW APOCALYPSE 191 

licence. “ Valentine ” was followed by “ Delia,” a wonderful book 
indeed, gorgeous in eloquence, and rich in magnificent poetry : a 
regular topsytuiwyfication of morality, a thieves’ and prostitutes’ 
apotheosis. This book has received some late enlargements and 
emendations by^ the writer; it contains her notions on morals, 
which, as we have said, are so peculiar, that, alas ! they can only 
be mentioned here, not particularised : but of “ Spiridion ” we may 
write a few pages, as it is her religious manifesto. 

In this work, the lady asserts her pantheistical doctrine, and 
openly attacks the received Christian creed. She declares it to be 
useless now, and unfitted to the exigencies and the degree of culture 
of the actual world ; and, though it would be hardly worth while 
to combat her opinions in due form, it is, at least, worth while to 
notice them, not merely from the extraordinary eloquence and genius 
of the woman herself, but because they express the oj^inions of a 
great number of people besides : for she not only produces her own 
thoughts, but imitates those of others very eagerly ; and one finds 
in her writings so much similarity with others, or, in others, so 
much resemblance to her, that the book before us may pass for the 
expression of the sentiments of a certain French party. 

“ Dieii est mort,” says another writer of the same class, and of 
great genius too. — “ Dieu est mort,” writes Mr. Henry Heine, speak- 
ing of the Christian God ; and he adds, in a daring figure of speech, 
— “ N’entendez-vous pas sonner la clochette? — on porte les sacre- 
ments k un Dieu qui se meurt ! ” Another of the pantheist poetical 
philosophers, Mr. Edgar Quinet, has a poem, in which Christ and 
the Virgin Mary are made to die similarly, and the former is classed 
with Prometheus. This book of “ Spiridion ” is a continuation of the 
theme, and perhaps you will listen to some of the author’s exposi- 
tions of it. 

It must be confessed that the controversialists of the present 
day have an eminent advantage over their predecessors in the days 
of folios : it required some learning then to write a book, and some 
time, at least, for the very labour of writing out a thousand such 
vast pages would demand a considerable j)eriod. But now, in the 
age of duodecimos, the system is reformed altogether : a male or 
female controversialist draws upon his imaginati( n, and not his 
learning ; makes a story instead of an argument, and, in the course 
of 150 pages (where the preacher has it all his own way) will prove 
or disprove you anything. And, to our shame be it said, we Pro- 
testants have set the example of this kind of proselytisni — those de- 
testable mixtures of truth, lies, false sentiment, false reasoning, bad 
grammar, correct and genuine philanthropy and piety — I mean our 
religious tracts, which any woman or man, be he ever so silly, can 


1.02 


THE PARIS SKETCH BOOK 


take upon himself to write, and sell for a "penny, as if religious 
instruction were the easiest thing in the world. AVe, I say, have 
set the example in this kind of composition, and all the sects of the 
earth will, doubtless, speedily follow it. I can point you out blas- 
phemies in famous pious tracts that are as dreadful as those above 
mentioned ; but this is no place for such discussions, and we had 
better return to Madame Sand. As Mrs. Sherwood expounds, by 
means of many touching histories and anecdotes of little boys and 
girls, her notions of Church history. Church catechism. Church 
doctrine ; — as the author of “ Father Clement, a Roman Catholic 
Story,” demolishes the stately structure of eighteen centuries, the 
mighty and beautiful Roman Catholic faith, in whose bosom repose 
so many saints and sages, — by the means of a tliree-and-sixpenny 
duodecimo volume, which tumbles over the vast fabric, as David’s 
pebble-stone did Goliath ; — as, again, the Roman Catholic author of 
“ Geraldine ” falls foul of Luther and Calvin, and drowns the awful 
echoes of their tremendous protest by the sounds of her little half- 
crown trumpet : in like manner, by means of pretty sentimental 
tales, and cheap apologues, Mrs. Sand proclaims her truth — that we 
need a new Messiah, and that the Christian religion is no more ! 
0 awful awful name of God ! Liglit unbearable ! Mystery un- 
fathomable ! Vastness immeasurable ! — Who are these who come 
forward to explain the mystery, and gaze unblinking into the depths 
of the light, and measure the immeasurable vastness to a hair ? 0 

name, that God’s people of old did fear to utter ! 0 light, that 

God’s prophet would have perished had he seen ! Who are these 
that are now so familiar with it? — Women, truly; for the most 
part weak women — weak in intellect, weak mayhap in spelling 
and grammar, but marvellously strong in faith : — women, who step 
down to the people with stately step and voice of authority, and 
deliver their twopenny tablets as if there were some Divine authority 
for the wretched nonsense recorded there ! 

AVith regard to the spelling and grammar, our Parisian Python- 
ess stands, in the goodly fellowship, remarkable. Her style is a 
noble, and, as far as a foreigner can judge, a strange tongue, 
beautifully rich and pure. Slie has a very exuberant imagination, 
and, with it, a very chaste style of expression. She never scarcely 
indulges in declamation, as other modern prophets do, and yet her 
sentences are exquisitely melodious and full. She seldom runs a 
thought to death (after the manner of some prophets, who, when 
they catch a little one, toy with it until they kill it), but she leaves 
you at the end of one of her brief, rich, melancholy sentences, with 
plenty of food for future cogitation. I can’t express to you the 
charm of them ; they seem to me like the sound of country bells — 


MME. SAND AND THE NEW APOCALYPSE 193 

provoking I don’t know what vein of musing and meditation, and 
tailing sweetly and sadly on the ear. 

This wonderful power of language must have been felt by most 
people who read Madame Sand’s first books, “Valentine” and 
“Indiana”: in “Spiridion” it is greater, I think, than ever; and 
for those who are not afraid of the matter of the novel, the manner 
will be found most delightful. The author’s intention, I presume, 
is to describe, in a parable, her notions of the downfall of the 
Catholic Church ; and, indeed, of the whole Christian scheme : she 
places her hero in a monastery in Italy, where, among the characters 
about him, and the events which occur, the particular tenets of 
Madame Dudevant’s doctrine are not inaptly laid down. Innocent, 
faithful, tender-hearted, a young monk, by name Angel, finds himself, 
when he has pronounced his vows, an object of aversion and hatred 
to the godly men whose lives he so much respects, and whose love 
he would make any sacrifice to win. After enduring much, he flings 
himself at the feet of his confessor, and begs' for his sympathy and 
counsel ; but the confessor spurns him away, and accuses him, 
fiercely, of some unknown and terrible crime — bids him never 
return to the confessional until contrition has touched his heart, 
and the stains which sully his spirit are, by sincere repentance, 
washed away. 

“ Thus speaking,” says Angel, “ Father Hegesippus tore away 
his robe, which I was holding in my supplicating hands. In a sort 
of wildness I grasped it still tighter ; he pushed me fiercely from 
him, and I fell with my face towards the ground. He quitted me, 
closing violently after him the door of the sacristy, in which this 
scene had passed. I was left alone in the darkness. Either from 
the violence of my fall, or the excess of my grief, a vein had burst 
in my throat, and a haemorrhage ensued. I had not the force to 
rise ; I felt my senses rapidly sinking, and, presently, I lay stretched 
on the pavement, unconscious, and bathed in my blood.” 

Now the wonderful part of the story begins. 

“ I know not how much time I passed in this way. As I came 
to myself I felt an agreeable coolness. It seemed as if some har- 
monious air was playing round about me, stirring gently in my hair, 
and drying the drops of perspiration on my brow. It seemed to 
approach, and then again to withdraw, breathing now softly and 
sweetly in the distance, and now returning, as if to give me strength 
and courage to rise. 

• ‘ I would not, however, do so as yet ; for I felt myself, as I lay, 
5 N 


194 


THE PARIS SKETCH BOOK 


under the influence of a pleasure quite new to me ; and listened, in 
a kind of peaceful aberration, to the gentle murmurs of the summer 
wind, as it breathed on me through the closed window-blinds above 
me. Then I fancied I heard a voice that spoke to me from the 
end of the sacristy ; it whispered so low that I could not catch 
the words. I remained motionless, and gave it my whole atten- 
tion. At last I heard, distinctly, the followed sentence : — Spirit 
of Truth, raise up these victims of ignorance and imposture.^ 
‘ Father Hegesippus,’ said I, in a weak voice, ‘ is that you who are 
returning to me % ’ But no one answered. I lifted myself on my 
hands and knees, I listened again, but I heard nothing. I got up 
completely, and looked about me : I had fallen so near to the only 
door in this little room, that none, after the departure of the con- 
fessor, could have entered it without passing over me ; besides, the 
door was shut, and only opened from the inside by a strong lock of 
the ancient shape. I touched it and assured myself that it was 
closed. I was seized with terror, and, for some moments, did not 
dare to move. Leaning against the door, I looked round, and endea- 
voured to see into the gloom in which the angles of the room were 
enveloped. A pale light, which came from an upper window, half 
closed, was seen to be trembling in the midst of the apartment. 
The wind beat the shutter to and fro, and enlarged or diminished 
the space through which the light issued. The objects which were 
in this half light — the praying desk, surmounted by its skull — a few 
books lying on the benches — a surplice hanging against the wall — 
seemed to move with the shadow of the foliage that the air agitated 
behind the window. When I thought I was alone, I felt ashamed 
of my former timidity ; I made the sign of the cross, and was about 
to move forward in order to open the shutter altogether, but a deep 
sigh came from the praying-desk, and kept me nailed to my place. 
And yet I saw the desk distinctly enough to be sure that no person 
was near it. Then I had an idea which gave me courage. Some 
person, I thought, is behind the shutter, and has been saying his 
prayers outside without thinking of me. But who would be so bold 
as to express such wishes and utter such a prayer as I had just 
heard % 

“Curiosity, the only passion and amusement permitted in a 
cloister, now entirely possessed me, and I advanced towards the 
window. But I had not made a step when a black shadow, as it 
seemed to me, detaching itself from the j)raying-desk, traversed the 
room, directing itself towards the window, and passed swiftly by me. 
The movement was so rapid that I had not time to avoid what 
seemed a body advancing towards me, and my fright was so great, 
that I thought I should faint a second time. But I felt nothing. 


MME. SAND AND THE NEW APOCALYPSE 195 

and, as if the shadow had passed through me, I saw it suddenly 
disappear to my left. 

“ I rushed to the window, I pushed back the blind with precipi- 
tation, and looked round the sacristy : I was there, entirely alone. 
I looked into the garden ; it was deserted, and the mid-day wind 
was wandering among the flowers. I took courage, I examined all 
the corners of the room ; I looked behind the praying-desk, which 
was very large, and I shook all the sacerdotal vestments which 
were hanging on the walls ; everything was in its natural condition, 
and could give me no explanation of what had just occurred. The 
sight of all the blood I had lost led me to fancy that my brain had, 
probably, been weakened by the haemorrhage, and that I had been 
a prey to some delusion. I retired to my cell, and remained shut 
up there until the next day.” 

I don’t know whether the reader has been as much struck with 
the above mysterious scene as the writer has ; but the fancy of it 
strikes me as very fine ; and the natural supernaturalness is kept 
up in the best style. The shutter swaying to and fro, the fitful 
light appearing over the furniture of the room, and giving it an 
air of strange motion — the awful shadow which passed through the 
body of the timid young novice — are surely very finely painted. 
“ I rushed to the shutter, and flung it back : there was no one 
in the saeristy. I looked into the garden : it was deserted, and 
the mid-day wind was roaming among the flowers.” The dreari- 
ness is wonderfully described : only the poor pale boy looking 
eagerly out from the window of the sacristy, and the hot mid-day 
wind walking in the solitary garden. How skilfully is each of 
these little strokes dashed in, and how well do all together combine 
to make a picture ! But we must have a little more about 
Spiridion’s wonderful visitant. 

“ As I entered into the garden, I stepped a little on one side, to 
make way for a person whom I saw before me. He was a young 
man of surprising beauty, and attired in a foreign costume. Al- 
though dressed in the large black robe which the superiors of our 
order wear, he had, underneath, a short jacket of fine cloth, fastened 
round the waist by a leathern belt, and a buckle of silver, after the 
manner of the old German students. Like them, he wore, instead 
of the sandals of our monks, short tight boots ; and over the collar 
of his shirt, which fell on liis shoulders, and was as white as snow, 
hung, in rich golden curls, the most beautiful hair I ever saw. He 
was tall, and his elegant posture seemed to reveal to me that he 
was in the habit of commanding. With much respect, and yet 


THE PARIS SKETCH BOOK 


196 

uncertain, I half saluted him. He did not retiu’ii my salute ; but 
he smiled on me with so benevolent an air, and at the same time, 
his eyes, severe and blue, looked towards me with an expression of 
such compassionate tenderness, that his features have never since 
then passed away from my recollection. I stopped, hoping he 
would speak to me, and persuading myself, from the majesty of his 
aspect, that he had the power to protect me ; but the monk, who 
was walking behind me, and who did not seem to remark him in the 
least, forced him brutally to step aside from the walk, and pushed 
me so rudely as almost to cause me to fall. Not wishing to engage 
in a quarrel with this coarse monk, I moved away ; but, after having 
taken a few steps in the garden, I looked back, and saw the un- 
known still gazing on me with looks of the ten derest solicitude. 
The sun shone full upon him, and made his hair look radiant. He 
sighed and lifted his fine eyes to heaven, as if to invoke its justice 
in my favour, and to call it to bear witness to my misery ; he turned 
slowly towards the sanctuary, entered into the choir, and Avas lost, 
presently, in the shade. I longed to return, spite of the monk, to 
follow this noble stranger, and to tell him my aftlictions ; but who 
Avas he that I imagined he would listen to them, and cause them to 
cease ? I felt, even Avhile his softness drcAV me toAvards him, that 
he still inspired me with a kind of fear ; for I saAV in his physiognomy 
as much austerity as sweetness.” 

Who was he 'I — we shall see that. He was somebody very 
mysterious indeed : but our author has taken care, after the manner 
of her sex, to make a very pretty felloAv of him, and to dress him in 
the most becoming costumes possible. 

The individual in tight boots and a rolling collar, with the 
copious golden locks, and the solemn blue eyes, who had just gazed 
on Spiridion, and inspired him Avith such a feeling of tender aAve, is 
a much more important personage than the reader might suppose at 
first sight. This beautiful, mysterious, dandy ghost, Avliose costume, 
Avith a true Avomaids coquetry, Madame Dudevant has so rejoiced to 
describe — is her religious type, a mystical representation of Faith 
struggling up toAv^ards Truth, through superstition, doubt, fear, 
reason, — in tight inexpressibles, Avith “a belt such as is worn by the 
old German students.” You Avill pardon me for treating such an awful 
person as this somewliat lightly ; but there is always, I think, such 
a dash of the ridiculous in the French sublioe, that the critic should 
try and do justice to both, or he may fail in giving a fair account of 
either. This character of Hebronius, the type of Mrs. Sand’s con- 


MME. SAND AND THE NEW APOCALYPSE 197 

victions — if convictions they may be called — or, at least, the allegory 
under which her doubts are represented, is, in parts, very finely 
drawn ; contains many passages of truth, very deep and touching, 
by the side of others so entirely absurd and unreasonable, that 
the reader’s feelings are continually swaying between admiration 
and something very like (contempt — always in a kind of wonder 
at the strange mixture before him. But let us hear Madame 
Sand : — 

“ Peter Hebronius,” says our author, “ was not originally so 
named. His real name was Samuel. He was a Jew, and born in 
a little village in the neighbourhood of Innsbruck. His family, 
which possessed a considerable fortune, left him, in his early youth, 
completely free to his own pursuits. From infancy he had shown 
that these were serious. He loved to be alone ; and passed his 
days, and sometimes his nights, wandering among the mountains 
and valleys in the neighbourhood of his birthplace. He would often 
sit by the brink of torrents, listening to the voi(*e of their waters, 
and endeavouring to. penetrate the meaning which Nature had hidden 
in those sounds. As he advanced in years, his inquiries became 
more curious and more grave. It was necessary that he should re- 
ceive a solid education, and his parents sent him to study in the 
German universities. Luther had been dead only a century, and 
his words and his memory still lived, in the enthusiasm of his 
disciples. The new faith was strengthening the conquests it had 
made ; the Reformers were as ardent as in the first days, but their 
ardour was more enlightened and more measured. Proselytism was 
still carried on with zeal, and new converts were made every day. 
In listening to the morality and to the dogmas which Lutheranism 
had taken from Catholicism, Samuel was filled with admiration. 
His bold and sincere spirit instantly conii)ared the doctrines which 
were now submitted to him, with those in the belief of which he 
had been bred ; and, enlightened by the comparison, was not slow 
to acknowledge the inferiority of Judaism. He said to himself, 
that a religion made for a single people, to the exclusion of all 
others — which only offered a barbarous justice for rule of conduct — 
which neither rendered the present intelligible nor satisfactory, and 
left the future uncertain — could not be- that of noble souls and lofty 
intellects ; and that he could not be the God of truth who had 
dictated, in the midst of thunder, his vacillating will, and had called 
to the performance of his narrow wishes the slaves of a vulgar terror. 
Always conversant with himself, Samuel, who had spoken what he 
thought, now performed what he had spoken ; and, a year after his 
arrival in Germany, solemnly abjured Judaism, and entered into the 


198 


THE PARIS SKETCH BOOK 


bosom of tlie reformed Church. As he did not wisli to do things 
by halves, and desired as much as was in him to i)ut off the old 
man and lead a new life, he changed his name of Samuel to that of 
Peter. Some time passed, during which he strengthened and in- 
structed himself in his new religion. Very soon he arrived at the 
point of searching for objections to refute, and adversaries to over- 
throw. Bold and enterprising, he went at once to the strongest, 
and Bossuet was the first Catholic author that he set himself to 
read. He commenced with a kind of disdain ; believing that the 
faith which he had just embraced contained the pure truth, he 
despised all the attacks which could be made against it, and laughed 
already at the irresistible arguments which he was to find in the 
works of the Eagle of Meaux. But his mistrust and irony soon 
gave place to wonder first, and then to admiration : he thought that 
the cause pleaded by such an advocate, must, at least, be respectable ; 
and, by a natural transition, came to think that great geniuses 
would only devote themselves to that which was great. He then 
studied Catholicism with the same ardour and impartiality which 
he had bestowed on Lutheranism. He went into France to gain 
instruction from the professors of the Mother Church, as he had 
from the Doctors of the reformed creed in Germany. He saw 
Arnauld, F^nelon, that second Gregory of Nazianzen, and Bossuet 
himself. Guided by these masters, whose virtues made him appre- 
ciate their talents the more, he rapidly penetrated to the depth of 
the mysteries of the Catholic doctrine and morality. He found, 
in this religion, all that had for him constituted the grandeur and 
beauty of Protestantism — the dogmas of the Unity and Eternity of 
God, which the two religions had borrowed from Judaism ; and, 
what seemed the natural consequence of the last doctrine — a doctrine, 
however, to which the Jews had not arrived — the doctrine of the 
immortality of the soul ; free will in this life ; in the next, recom- 
pense for the good, and punishment for the evil. He found, more pure, 
perhaps, and more elevated in Catholicism than in Protestantism, 
that sublime morality which preaches equality to man, fraternity, 
love, charity, renouncement of self, devotion to your neighbour : 
Catholicism, in a word, seemed to possess that vast formula, and 
that vigorous unity, which Lutheranism wanted. The latter had, 
indeed, in its favour, the liberty of inquiry, which is also a want of 
the human mind ; and had proclaimed the authority of individual 
reason ; but it had so lost that which is the necessary basis and 
vital condition of all revealed religion — the principle of infalli- 
bility ; because nothing can live except in virtue of the laws that 
presided at its birth; and, in consequence, one revelation cannot 
be continued and confirmed without another. Now, infallibility 


MME. SAND AND THE NEW APOCALYPSE 199 

is nothing hut revelation continued by God, or the Word, in 
the person of His vicars. 


“ At last, after much reflection, Hebronius acknowledged himself 
entirely and sincerely convinced, and received baptism from the 
hands of Bossuet. He added the name of Spiridion to that of 
Peter, to signify that he had been twice enlightened by the Spirit. 
Resolved thenceforward to consecrate his life to the worship of the 
new God who had called him to Him, and to the study of His 
doctrines, he passed into Italy, and, with the aid of a large fortune, 
which one of his uncles, a Catholic like himself, had left to him, he 
built this convent, where we now are.” 


A friend of mine, who has just come from Italy, says that he 

has there left Messrs. Sp r, P 1 , and W. Dr d, who 

were the lights of the great church in Newman Street, who were 
themselves apostles, and declared and believed that every word of 
nonsense which fell from their lips was a direct spiritual interven- 
tion. These gentlemen have become Puseyites already, and are, 
my friend states, in the highway to Catholicism. Madame Sand 
herself was a Catholic some time since : having been converted to 

that faith along with M. N , of the Academy of Music ; Mr. 

L , the pianoforte player; and one or two other chosen in- 
dividuals, by the famous Abb^ de la M . Ahh 6 de la M 

(so told me, in the Diligence, a priest, who read his breviary and 
gossiped alternately very curiously and pleasantly) is himself an 
ante perdue : the man spoke of his brother clergyman with actual 
horror ; and it certainly appears that the Abbd’s works of conver- 
sion have not prospered; for Madame Sand, having brought her 
hero (and herself, as we may presume) to the point of Catholicism, 
proceeds directly to dispose of that as she has done of Judaism and 
Protestantism, and will not leave, of the whole fabric of Christianity, 
a single stone standing. 

I think the fate of our English Newman Street apostles, and of 

M. de la M , the mad priest, and his congregation of mad 

converts, should be a warning to such of us as are inclined to dabble 
in religious speculations ; for, in them, as in all others, our flighty 
brains soon lose themselves, and we find our reason speedily lying 
prostrated at the mercy of our passions ; and I think that Madame 
Sand’s novel of “ Spiridion ” may do a vast deal of good, and bears 
a good moral with it ; though not such an one, perhaps, as our fair 
philosopher intended. For anything he learned, Samuel-Peter- 
Spiridion-Hebronius might have remained a Jew from the beginning 


200 


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to the end. Wherefore be in such a hurry to set up new faiths 1 
Wherefore, Madame Sand, try and be so preternaturally wise? 
Wherefore be so eager to jump out of one religion for the pur[)ose 
of jumping into another ? See what good this philosophical friski- 
ness has done you, and on what sort of ground you are come at last. 
You are so wonderfully sagacious, that you flounder in mud at every 
step ; so amazingly clear-sighted, that your eyes cannot see an inch 
before you, having put out, with that extinguishing genius of yours, 
every one of tlie lights that are sufficient for the conduct of common 
men. And for what ? Let our friend Spiridion speak for himself. 
After setting up his convent, and filling it with monks, who enter- 
tain an immense respect for his wealth and genius. Father 
Hebronius, unanimously elected prior, gives himself up to further 
studies, and leaves his monks to themselves. Industrious and 
sober as they were, originally, they grow quickly intemperate and 
idle ; and Hebronius, Avho does not a])poar among his flock until 
he has freed himself of the Catholic religion, as he has of the Jewish 
and the Protestant, sees, witli dismay, the evil condition of his 
disciples, and regrets, too late, the precipitancy by which he re- 
nounced, then and for ever, Christianity. 

“ But as he had no new religion to adopt in its place, and as, 
grown more prudent and calm, he did not wish to accuse himself 
unnecessarily, once more, of inconstancy and apostasy, he still 
maintained all the exterior forms of the worship which inwardly he 
had abjured. But it was not enough for him to have quitted error, 
it was necessary to discover truth. But Hebronius had well looked 
round to discover it ; he could not find anything that resembled it. 
Then commenced for him a series of sufferings, unknown and 
terrible. Placed face to face with doubt, this sincere and religious 
spirit was frightened at its own solitude ; and as it had no other 
desire nor aim on earth than truth, and nothing else here below 
interested it, he lived absorbed in his own sad contemplations, 
looked ceaselessly into the vague that surrounded him like an 
ocean without bounds, and seeing the horizon retreat and retreat as 
ever he wished to near it. Lost in this immense uncertainty, he 
felt as if attacked by vertigo, and his thoughts whirled within his 
brain. Then, fatigued with his vain toils and hopeless endeavours, 
he would sink down depressed, unmanned, life-wearied, only living 
in the sensation of that silent grief which he felt and could not 
comprehend.” 

It is a pity that this hapless Spiridion, so eager in his passage 
from one creed to another, and so loud in his profession of the 


MME. SAND AND THE NEW APOCALYPSE 201 

truth, wherever he fancied that he had found it, had not waited a 
little, before he avowed himself either Catholic or Protestant, and 
implicated others in errors and follies which might, at least, have 
been confined to his own bosom, and there have lain comparatively 
harmless. In what a pretty state, for instance, will Messrs. 

Dr d and P 1 have left their Newman Street congregation, 

who are still plunged in their old superstitions, from which their 
spiritual pastors and masters have been set free ! In what a state, 
too, do Mrs. Sand and her brother and sister philosophers. Templars, 
Saint-Simonians, Fourierites, Lerouxites, or whatever the sect may 
be, leave the unfortunate people who have listened to their doctrines, 
and who have not t)ie opportunity, or the fiery versatility of belief, 
which carries their teachers from one creed to another, leaving 
only exploded lies and useless recantations behind them ! I wish 
the State would make a law that one individual should not be 
allowed to preach more than one doctrine in his life ; or, at any 
rate, should be soundly corrected for every change of creed. How 
many charlatans would have been silenced, — how much conceit 
would have been kept within bounds, — how many fools, who are 
dazzled by fine sentences, and made drunk by declamation, would 
have remained quiet and sober, in that quiet and sober way of faith 
which their fathers held before them ! However, the reader will 
be glad to learn that, after all his doubts and sorrows, Spiridion 
does discover the truth {the truth, what a wise Spiridion !), and 
some discretion with it ; for, having found among his monks, who 
are dissolute, superstitious — and all hate him— one only being, 
Fulgentius, who is loving, candid, and pious, he says to him — 

“ If you were like myself, if the first want of your nature were, 
like mine, to know, I would, without hesitation, lay bare to you my 
entire thoughts. I would make you drink the cup of truth, which 
I myself have filled with so many tears, at the risk of intoxicating 
you with the draught. But it is not so, alas ! you are made to 
love rather than to know, and your heart is stronger than your 
intellect. You are attached to Catholicism — I believe so, at least 
— by bonds of sentiment which you could not break without pain, 
and which, if you were to break, the truth which I could lay bare 
to you in return would not repay you for what you had sacrificed. 
Instead of exalting, it would crush you, very likely. It is a food 
too strong for ordinary men, and which, when it does not revivify, 
smothers. I will not, then, reveal to you this doctrine, which is 
the triumph of my life, and the consolation of my last days ; be- 
cause it might, perhaps, be for you only a cause of mourning and 
despair. ... Of all the works which my long studies have pro- 


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duced, there is one alone whicli I have not given to the flames ; for 
it alone is complete. In that you will And me entire, and there 
LIES THE TRUTH. And, as the sage has said, you must not bury 
your treasures in a well, I will not confide mine to the brutal 
stupidity of these monks. But as this volume should only pass 
into hands worthy to touch it, and be laid open for eyes that are 
capable of comprehending its mysteries, I shall exact from the 
reader one condition, which, at the same time, shall be a proof : 
I shall carry it with me to the tomb, in order that he who one 
day shall read it, may have courage enough to brave the vain 
terrors of the grave, in searching for it amid the dust of my 
sepulchre. As soon as I am dead, therefore, place this writing 
on my breast. ... Ah ! when the time comes for reading it, 
I think my withered heart will spring up again, as the frozen grass 
at the return of the sun, and that, from the midst of its infinite 
transformations, my spirit will enter into immediate communica- 
tion with thine ! ” 

Does not the reader long to be at this precious manuscript, 
which contains the truth ; and ought he not to be very much 
obliged to Mrs. Sand for being so good as to print it for him^ 
We leave all the story aside : how Eulgentius had not the spirit 
to read the manuscript, but left the secret to Alexis ; how Alexis, 
a stern old philosophical unbelieving monk as ever was, tried in 
vain to lift up the gravestone, but was taken with fever, and obliged 
to forego the discovery j and how, finally, Angel, his disciple, a 
youth amiable and innocent as his name, was the destined person 
who brought the long-buried treasure to light. Trembling and 
delighted, the pair read this tremendous manuscript of Spiridion. 

Will it be believed, that of all the dull, vague, windy documents 
that mortal ever set eyes on, this is the dullest 'I If this be absolute 
truth, a quoi hon search for it, since we have long long had the 
jewel in our possession, or since, at least, it has been held up as 
such by every sham philosopher who has had a mind to pass off 
his wares on the public 1 Hear Si)iridion : — 

“ How much have I wept, how much have I suffered, how 
much have I prayed, how much have I laboured, before I under- 
stood the cause and the aim of my passage on this earth ! After 
many incertitudes, after much remorse, after many scruples, / have 
comprehended tdiat I was a martyr ! — But why my martyrdom'? said 
I ; what crime did I commit before I was born, thus to be condemned 
to labour and groaning, from the hour when I first saw the day up 
to that when I am about to enter into the night of the tomb ? 


MME. SAND AND THE NEW APOCALYPSE 203 


“ At last, by dint of imploring God — by dint of inquiry into the 
history of man, a ray of the truth has descended on my l3row, and 
the shadows of the past have melted from before my eyes. I have 
lifted a corner of the curtain : I have seen enough to know that my 
life, like that of the rest of the human race, has been a series of 
necessary errors, yet, to speak more correctly, of incomplete truths, 
conducting, more or less slowly and directly, to absolute truth and 
ideal perfection. But when will they rise on the face of the earth 
— wlien will they issue from the bosom of the Divinity — those 
generations who shall salute the august countenance of Truth, and 
proclaim the reign of the ideal on earth ? I see well how humanity 
marches, but I neither can see its cradle nor its apotheosis. Man 
seems to me a transitory race, between the beast and the angel ; 
but I know not how many centuries have been required, that he 
might pass from the state of brute to the state of man, and I can- 
not tell how many ages are necessary that he may from the 
state of man to the state of angel ! 

“Yet I hope, and I feel within me, at the approach of death, 
that which warns me that great destinies await humanity. In this 
life all is over for me. Much have I striven, to advance but little : 
I have laboured without ceasing, and have done almost nothing. 
Yet, after pains immeasurable, I die content, for I know that I 
have done all I could, and am sure that the little I have done will 
not be lost. 

“ What, then, have I done ? this wilt thou demand of me, man 
of a future age, who will seek for truth in the testaments of the 
past. Thou who wilt be no more Catholic — no more Christian, 
tliou wilt ask of the poor monk, lying in the dust, an account of his 
life and death. Thou wouldst know wherefore were his vows, why 
his austerities, his labours, his retreat, his prayers 1 

“You who turn back to me, in order that I may guide you on 
your road, and that you maj^ arrive more quickly at the goal which 
it has not been my lot to attain, pause, yet, for a moment, and look 
upon the past history of humanity. You will see that its fate has 
been ever to choose between the least of two evils, and ever to 
commit great faults in order to avoid others still greater. You 
will see ... on one side, the heathen mythology, that debased the 
spirit, in its efforts to deify the flesh ; on the other, the austere 
Christian principle, that debased the flesh too much, in order to 
raise the worship of the spirit. You will see, afterwards, how the 
religion of Christ embodies itself in a Church, and raises itself a 
generous democratic power against the tyranny of princes. Later 
still, you will see how that power has attained its end, and passed 
beyond it. You will see it, having chained and conquered princes, 


204 


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league itself with them, in order to oppress the people, and seize on 
temporal power. Schism, then, raises up against it the standard 
of revolt, and i)reaches the bold and legitimate ])rinciple of liberty 
of conscience : but, also, you will see how this liberty of conscience 
brings religious anarchy in its train ; or, worse still, religious 
inditterence and disgust. And if your soul, shattered in the teni- 
Ijestuous changes which you behold humanity undergoing, would 
strike out for itself a passage through ^the rocks, amidst which, like 
a frail bark, lies tossing trembling truth, you will be embarrassed 
to choose between the new philosophers — who, in preaching toler- 
ance, destroy religious and social unity — and the last Christians, 
who, to preserve society, that is, religion and philosophy, are 
obliged to brave the principle of toleration. Man of truth ! to 
whom I address, at once, my instruction and my justification, at 
tlie time when you shall live, the science of truth no doubt will 
have advanced a step. Think, then, of all your fiithers have suf- 
fered, as, bending beneath the weight of their ignorance and uncer- 
tainty, they have traversed the desert across which, with so much 
pain, they have conducted thee ! And if the pride of thy young 
learning shall make thee contemplate the x>etty strifes in which our 
life has been consumed, pause and tremble, as you think of that 
which is still unknown to yourself, and of the judgment that your 
descendants will pass on you. Think of this, and learn to respect 
all those who, seeking their way in all sincerity, have wandered 
from the path, frightened by the storm, and sorely tried by the 
severe hand of the All-Powerful. Think of this, and prostrate 
yourself; for all these, even the most mistaken among them, are 
saints and martyrs. 

“ Without their conquests and their defeats, thou wert in dark- 
ness still. Yes, their failures, their errors even, have a right to 
your respect ; for man is weak. . . . Weep, then, for us obscure 
toilers — unknown victims, who, by our mortal sulferings and un- 
heard-of labours, have prepared the way before you. Pity me, 
who, having passionately loved justice, and perseveringly sought for 
truth, only opened my eyes to shut them again for ever, and saw 
that I had been in vain endeavouring to support a ruin, to take 
refuge in a vault of which the foundations were worn away.” 

The rest of the book of Spiridion is made up of a history of 
the rise, progress, and (what our philosopher is pleased to call) 
decay of Cliristianity — of an assertion, that the “ doctrine of Christ 
is incomplete ” ; that “ Christ may, nevertheless, take his place in 
the Pantheon of divine men ! ” and of a long, disgusting, absurd, 
and impious vision, in which the Saviour, Moses, David, and 


MME. SAND AND THE NEW APOCALYPSE 205 


Elijah are represented, and in wliieh Christ is made to say — “ IFe 
are all Messiahs, when we wish to bring the reign of truth upon 
earth ; we are all Christs, when we sulfer for it ! ” 

And this is the ultimatum, the supreme secret, the absolute 

truth ! and it has been published by Mrs. Sand, for so many 

napoleons per sheet, in the Revue des Deux Mondes ; and the 
Deux Mondes are to abide by it for the future. After having 
attained it, are we a whit wiser 1 “ Man is between an angel 

and a beast : I don’t know how long it is since he was a brute 
— I can’t say how long it will be before he is an angel.” Think 
of peoi)le living by their wits, and living by such a wit as this ! 

Think of the state of mental debauch and disease which must 

have been passed through, ere such words could be Avritten, and 
could be popular. 

When a man leaves our dismal smoky London atmosphere, and 
breathes, instead of coal-smoke and yellow fog, this bright clear 
French air, he is quite intoxicattMl by it at first, and feels a gloAv 
in his blood, and a joy in his spirits, which scarcely thrice a year, 
and then only at a distance from London, he can attain in England. 
Is the intoxication, I Avonder, permanent among the natives'? and 
may Ave not account for the ten thousand frantic freaks of these 
people by the peculiar influence of French air and suni The 
philosophers are from night to morning drunk, the politicians are 
drunk, the literary men reel and stagger from one absurdity to 
another, and hoAv shall Ave understand their vagaries'? Let us 
suppose, charitably, that Madame Sand had inhaled a more than 
ordinary quantity of this laughing gas Avhen she Avrote for us this 
precious manuscript of “ Spiridion.” That great destinies are in 
prospect for the human race AA^e may fancy, Avithout her ladyship’s 
word for it : but more liberal than she, and having a little retro- 
spective charity, as well as tliat easy prospective benevolence which 
Mrs. Sand adopts, let us try and think there is some hope for our 
fathers (avIio were nearer brutality than ourselves, according to the 
Sandean creed), or else there is a very poor chance for us, Avho, 
great philosophers as Ave are, are yet, alas ! far removed from that 
angelic consummation Avhich all inust Avish for so devoutly. She 
cannot say — is it not extraordinary? — how many centuries have 
been necessary before man could pass from the brutal state to his 
present condition, or how many ages Avill be required ere we may 
pass from the state of man to the state of angels ! What the 
deuce is the use of chronology or philosophy? — We Avere beasts, 
and Ave can’t tell Avhen our tails dropped oft’ : Ave shall be angels ; 
but Avhen our Avings arc to begin to si)rout, Avho knoAvs ? In the 
meantime, 0 man of genius, folloAv our counsel : lead an easy life, 


206 


THE PARIS SKETCH BOOK 


don’t stick at trifles : never mind about duty, it is only made for 
slaves ; if the world reproach you, reproach the world in return, 
you have a good loud tongue in your head; if your strait-laced 
morals injure your mental respiration, fling olf the old-fashioned 
stays, and leave your free limbs to rise and Ml as Nature pleases ; 
and when you have grown pretty sick of your liberty, and yet unfit 
to return to restraint, curse the world, and scorn it, and be miser- 
able, like my Lord Byron and other philosophers of his kidney ; or 
else mount a step higher, and, with conceit still more monstrous, 
and mental vision still more wretchedly debauched and weak, begin 
suddenly to find yourself afflicted with a maudlin compassion for 
the human race, and a desire to set them right after your own 
fashion. There is the quarrelsome stage of drunkenness, when a 
man can as yet walk and speak, when he can call names, and fling 
plates and wine-glasses at his neighbour’s head with a pretty good 
aim ; after this comes the pathetic stage, when the patient becomes 
wondrous philanthropic, and weeps wildly, as he lies in the gutter, 
and fancies he is at home in bed — where he ought to be : but this 
is an allegory. 

I don’t wish to carry this any farther, or to say a word in 
defence of the doctrine which Mrs. Dudevant has found “in- 
complete ” ; — here, at least, is not the place for discussing its 
merits, any more than Mrs. Sand’s book was the place for exposing, 
forsooth, its errors : our business is only with the day and the new 
novels, and the clever or silly people who write them. Oh ! if 
they but knew their places, and would keep to them, and drop 
their absurd philosophical jargon ! Not all the big words in the 
world can make Mrs. Sand talk like a philosopher : when will 
she go back to her old trade, of which she was the very ablest 
practitioner in France % 

I should have been glad to give some extracts from the dramatic 
and descriptive parts of the novel, that cannot, in point of style and 
beauty, be praised too highly. One must suffice, — it is the descent 
of Alexis to seek that unlucky manuscript, “ Spiridion.” 

“It seemed to me,” he begins, “that the descent was eternal; 
and that I was burying myself in the depths of Erebus : at last, I 
reached a level place — and I heard a mournful voice deliver these 
words, as it were, to the secret centre of the earth — ‘ He will mount 
that ascent no more ! ’ — Immediately I heard arise towards me, 
from the depth of invisible abysses, a myriad of formidable voices 
united in a strange chant — ‘ Let us destroy him ! Let him he 
destroyed ! What does he here among the dead ? Let him be 
delivered back to torture ! Let him be given again to life ! ” 


MME. SAND AND THE NEW APOCALYPSE 207 

“ Then a feeble light began to pierce the darkness, and I per- 
ceived that I stood on the lowest step of a staircase, vast as the 
foot of a mountain. Behind me were thousands of steps of lurid 
iron ; before me, nothing but a void — an abyss, and ether ; the blue 
gloom of midnight beneath my feet, as above my head. I became 
delirious, and quitting that staircase, which methought it was im- 
possible for me to reascend, I sprang forth into the void with an 
execration. But, immediately, when I had uttered the curse, the 
void began to be filled with forms and colours, and I presently 
perceived that I was in a vast gallery, along which I advanced, 
trembling. There was still darkness round me ; but the hollows 
of the vaults gleamed with a red light, and showed me the strange 
and hideous forms of their building. ... I did not distinguish the 
nearest objects ; but those towards which I advanced assumed an 
appearance more and more ominous, and my terror increased with 
every step I took. The enormous pillars which supported the 
vault, and the tracery thereof itself, were figures of men, of super- 
natural stature, delivered to tortures without a name. Some hung 
by their feet, and, locked in the coils of monstrous serpents, clenched 
their teeth in the marble of the pavement ; others, fastened by their 
waists, were dragged upwards, these by their feet, those by their 
heads, towards capitals, where other figures stooped towards them, 
eager to torment them. Other pillars, again, represented a struggling 
mass of figures devouring one another ; each of which only offered 
a trunk severed to the knees or to the shoulders, the fierce heads 
whereof retained life enough to seize and devour that which was 
near them. There were some who, half hanging down, agonised 
themselves by attempting, with their upper limbs, to flay the 
lower moiety of their bodies, which drooped from the columns, 
or were attached to the pedestals ; and others, who, in their fight 
with each other, were dragged along by morsels of flesh — grasping 
which, they clung to each other with a countenance of unspeak- 
able hate and agony. Along, or rather in place of, the frieze, there 
were on either side a range of unclean beings, wearing the human 
form, but of loathsome ugliness, busied in tearing human corpses 
to pieces — in feasting upon their limbs and entrails. From the 
vault, instead of bosses and pendants, hung the crushed and 
wounded forms of children ; as if to escape tliese eaters of man’s 
flesh, they would throw themselves downwards, and be dashed to 
pieces on the pavement. . . . The silence and motionlessness of the 
whole added to its awfulness. I became so fliint with terror, that 
I stopped, and would fain have returned. But at that moment 
I hear^ from the depths of the gloom through which I had passed, 
confused noises, like those of a multitude on its march. And the 


208 


THE PARIS SKETCH BOOK 


sounds soon became more distinct, and tlie clamour fiercer, and the 
steps came liurrying on tumultuously — at every new burst nearer, 
more violent, more threatening. I thought that I was pursued by 
this disorderly crowd ; and I strove to advance, hurrying into the 
midst of those dismal sculptures. Then it seemed as if those 
figures began to heave — and to sweat blood — and their beady eyes 
to move in their sockets. At once I beheld that they were all look- 
ing upon me, that they were all leaning towards me, — some with 
frightful derision, others with furious aversion. Every arm was 
raised against me, and they made as though they would crush me 
with the quivering limbs they had torn one from the other.” 


It is, indeed, a pity that the poor fellow gave himself the trouble 
to go down into damp unwholesome graves, for the })urpose of fetch- 
ing up a few trumpery sheets of manuscript ; and if the public has 
been rather tired with their contents, and is disposed to ask why 
Mrs. Sand’s religious or irreligious notions are to be brought forward 
to people who are quite satisfied with their own, we can only say 
that this lady is the representative of a vast class of her country- 
men, whom the wits and pliilosophers of the eighteenth century 
have brought to this condition. The leaves of the Diderot and 
Rousseau tree have produced this goodly fruit : her? it is, ripe, 
bursting, and ready to fall and how to fall ? Heaven send that 
it may drop easily, for all can see that the time is come. 


THE CASE OF PEYTEL 


IN A LETTER TO EDAVARD BRIEFLESS, ESQUIRE, OF PUMP 
COURT, TEMPLE. 


Paris : November 1839. 


Y DEAR BRIEFLESS, — Two months since, when the act 



of accusation first apjieared, containing the sum of the 


^ charges against Sebastian Peytel, all Paris was in a fervour 
on the subject. Tlie man’s trial speedily followed, and kept for 
three days the public interest wound up to a painful point. He 
was found guilty of double murder at the beginning of September ; 
and, since that time, Avhat with Maroto’s disaffection and Turkish 
news, Ave have had leisure to forget Monsieur Peytel, and to occupy 
ourselves Avith rt veov. Perhaps Monsieur de Balzac helped to 
smother Avhat Tittle sparks of interest might still have remained for 
the murderous notary. Balzac put forAvard a letter in his favour, 
so very long, so very dull, so A^ery pompous, promising so much, and 
performing so little, that the Parisian public gave up Peytel and his 
case altogether ; nor Avas it until to-day that some small feeling was 
raised concerning him, when the iieAvspapers brought the account 
hoAv Peytel’s head had been cut off at Bourg. 

He had gone through the usual miserable ceremonies and delays 
Avhich attend Avhat is called, in this country, the march of justice. 
He had made his ajipeal to the Court of Cassation, Avhich had taken 
time to consider the verdict of the Provincial Court, and had con- 
firmed it. He had made his appeal for mercy; his poor sister 
coming up all the way from Bourg (a sad journey, poor thing !) to 
have an intervieAv Avith the King, who had refused to see her. Last 
Monday morning, at nine o’clock, an hour before Peytel’s breakfast, 
the Greffier of Assize Court, in company Avith the Cur^ of Bourg, 
waited on him, and informed him that he had only three hours to 
live. At tAvelve o’clock, Peytel’s head Avas off his body ; an execu- 
tioner from Lyons had come over the night before, to assist the 
professional throat-cutter of Bourg. 

I am not going to entertain you with any sentimental lamentations 


210 


THE PARIS SKETCH BOOK 


for this scoimdrers fate, or to declare my belief in liis innocence, as 
Monsieur de Balzac has done. As far as moral conviction can go, 
the man’s guilt is pretty clearly brought home to him. But any 
man who lias read the “ Causes C^l^bres,” knows that men have 
been convicted and executed upon evidence ten times more powerful 
than that which was brought against Peytel. His own account of 
his horrible case may be true; there is nothing adduced in the 
evidence which is strong enough to overthrow it. It is a serious 
privilege, God knows, that society takes upon itself, at any time, to 
deprive one of God’s creatures of existence. But when the slightest 
doubt remains, what a tremendous risk does it incur ! In England, 
thank Heaven, the law is more wise and more merciful : an English 
jury would never have taken a man’s blood upon such testimony ; 
an English judge and Crown advocate would never have acted as 
these Frenchmen have done : the latter inflaming the public mind 
by exaggerated appeals to their passions ; the former seeking, in 
every way, to draw confessions from the prisoner, to perplex and 
confound him, to do away, by fierce cross-questioning and bitter 
remarks from the bench, with any effect that his testimony might 
have on the jury. I don’t mean to say that judges and lawyers 
have been more violent and inquisitorial against the unhappy Peytel 
than against any one else ; it is the fashion of the country ; a man 
is guilty until he proves himself to be innocent ; and to batter down 
his defence, if he have any, there are the lawyers, with all their 
horrible ingenuity, and their captivating passionate eloquence. It 
is hard thus to set the skilful and tried champions of the law 
against men unused to this kind of combat ; nay, give a man all the 
legal aid that he can purchase or procure, still, by this plan, you 
take him at a cruel unmanly disadvantage ; he has to fight against 
the law, clogged with the dreadful weight of his presupposed guilt. 
Thank God that, in England, things are not managed so. 

However, I am not about to entertain you with ignorant disquisi- 
tions about the law. Peytel’s case may, nevertheless, interest you ; 
for the tale is a very stirring and liiysterious one ; and you may see 
how easy a thing it is for a man’s life to be talked away in France, 
if ever he should happen to fall under the suspicion of a crime. 
The French “ Acte d’accusation ” begins in the following manner : — 

“ Of all the events which, in these latter times, have afflicted 
the department of the Ain, there is none which has caused a more 
profound and lively sensation than the tragical death of the lady, 
Fdlicit^ Alcazar, wife of Sebastian Benedict Peytel, notary, at 
Belley. At the end of October 1838, Madame Peytel quitted that 
town, with her husband, and their servant Louis Rey, in order to 


THE CASE OF PEYTEL 


211 


pass a few days at Macon ; at midnight, the inhabitants of Belley 
were suddenly awakened by the arrival of Monsieur Peytel, by his 
cries, and by the signs which he exhibited of the most lively agita- 
tion : he implored the succours of all the physicians in the town ; 
knocked violently at their doors ; rung at the bells of their houses 
with a sort of frenzy, and announced that his wife, stretched out, 
and dying, in his carriage, had just been shot, on the Lyons road, 
by his domestic, whose life Peytel himself had taken. 

“At this recital a number of persons assembled, and what a 
spectacle was presented to their eyes ! 

“ A young woman lay at the bottom of a carriage, deprived of 
life ; her whole body was wet, and seemed as if it had just been 
plunged into the water. She appeared to be severely wounded in 
the face ; and her garments, which were raised up, in spite of the 
cold and rainy weather, left the upper part of her knees almost 
entirely exposed. At the sight of this half-naked and inanimate 
body, all the spectators were affected. People said that the first 
duty to pay to a dying woman was, to preserve her from the cold, 
to cover her. A physician examined the body; he declared that all 
remedies were useless ; that Madame Peytel was dead and cold. 

“ The entreaties of Peytel were redoubled ; he demanded fresh 
succours, and, giving no heed to the fatal assurance which had 
just been given him, required that all the physicians in the place 
should be sent for. A scene so strange and so melancholy; the 
incoherent account given by Peytel of the murder of his wife ; his 
extraordinary movements ; and the avowal which he continued to 
make, that he had despatched the murderer, Eey, with strokes of 
his hammer, excited the attention of Lieutenant Wolf, commandant 
of gendarmes : that officer gave orders for the immediate arrest of 
Peytel ; but the latter threw himself into the arms of a friend, who 
interceded fbr him, and begged the police not immediately to seize 
upon his person. 

“The corpse of Madame Peytel was. transported to lier apartment; 
the bleeding body of the domestic was likewise brought from the road, 
where it lay; and Peytel, asked to explain the circumstance, did so.” 

Now, as there is little reason to tell the reader, when an 
English counsel has to prosecute a prisoner on the part of the 
Crown for a capital offence, he jmoduces the articles of his accusa- 
tion in the most moderate terms, and especially warns the jury 
to give the accused person the benefit of every possible doubt that 
the evidence may give, or may leave. See how these things are 
managed in France, and how differently the -French counsel for the 
Crown sets about his worii. 


212 


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He first prepares his act of accusation, the opening of which 
we have just read ; it is published six days before the trial, so 
that an uniinpassioned unprejudiced jury has ample time to study 
it, and to form its opinions accordingly, and to go into court with 
a happy just prepossession against the prisoner. 

Read the first i)art of the Peytel act of accusation ; it is as 
turgid and declamatory as a bad romance; and as infiated as a 
iiewsi)aper document by an unlimited penny-a-liner : — “ The depart- 
ment of the Ain is in a dreadful state of excitement ; the inhabitants 
of Belley come trooping from their beds, — and what a sight do 
they behold : — a young woman at the bottom of a carriage, toute 
ruisselante, just out of a river ; lier garments, in si)ite of the cold 
and rain, raised, so as to leave the upper part of her knees entirely 
exposed, at which all the beholders were affected, and cried, that 
the Jirst duty was to cover her from the cold.” This settles the 
case at once : the first duty of a man is to cover the legs of the 
sufferer ; the second to call for help. The eloquent “ Substitut du 
Procureur du Roi ” has prejudged the case, in the course of a few 
sentences. He is putting his readers, among whom his future 
jury is to be found, into a proper state of mind ; he works on 
them with pathetic description, just as a romance-writer would ; 
the rain pours in torrents : it is a dreary evening in November ; 
the young creature’s situation is neatly described ; the distrust 
which entered into the breast of the keen old officer of gendarmes 
strongly painted, the suspicions which might, or might not, have 
been entertained by the inhabitants, eloquently argued. How did 
the advocate know that the peojjle had such % did all the bystanders 
say aloud, “ I suspect that this is a case of murder by Monsieur 
Peytel, and that his story about the domestic is all deception ” h 
or did they go off to the mayor, and register their suspicion? or 
was the advocate there to hear them? Not he: but he paints 
you the whole scene as though it had existed, and gives full accounts 
of suspicions as if they had been facts, positive, patent, staring, 
that everybody could see and swear to. 

Having tlius primed his audience, and prepared them for the 
testimony of the accused party, “ Now,” says he, with a fine show 
of justice, “ let us hear Monsieur Peytel ; ” and that worthy’s 
narrative is given as follows : — 

“He said that he had left Macon on the 31st October, at eleven 
o’clock in the morning, in order to return to Belley, with his wife 
and servant. The latter drove, or led, an open car; he himself 
was driving his wife in a four-wheeled carriage, drawn by one 
horse ; they reached Bourg at five o’clock in the evening ; left it 


THE CASE OF PEYTEL 


213 


at seven, to sleep at Pont d’Ain, wliere they did not arrive before 
midnight. During the journey, Peytel thought he remarked that 
Rey liad slackened his horse’s pace. When they alighted at the 
inn, Peytel bade him deposit in his chamber 7500 francs, which 
he carried with him ; but the domestic refused to do so, saying 
that the inn gates were secure, and there was no danger. Peytel 
was, therefore, obliged to carry his money up-stairs himself. The 
next day, the 1st November, they set out on their journey again, at 
nine o’clock in the morning; Louis did not come, according to 
custom, to take his master’s orders. They arrived at Tenay about 
three, stopped there a couple of hours to dine, and it was eight 
o’clock when they reached the bourg of Rossillon, where they 
waited half-an-hour to bait the horses. 

“ As they left Rossillon, the weather became bad, and the rain 
began to hill : Peytel told his domestic to get a covering for the 
articles in the open chariot; but Rey refused- to do so, adding, in an 
ironical tone, that the weather was fine. For some days past, Peytel 
had remarked that his servant was gloomy, and scarcely spoke at all 

“ After they had gone about five hundred paces beyond the 
bridge of Andert, tliat crosses the river Furans, and ascended to 
the least steep . part of the hill of Darde, Peytel cried out to his 
servant, who was seated in the car, to come down from it, and finish 
the ascent on foot. 

“At this moment a violent wind was blowing from the south, 
and the rain was falling heavily : Peytel was seated back in the 
right corner of the carriage, and his wife, who was close to him, 
was asleep, with her head on his left shoulder. All of a sudden he 
heard the report of a firearm (he had seen the light of it at some 
paces’ distance), and Madame Peytel cried out, ‘ My poor liusband, 
take your pistols;’ the horse was frightened, and began to trot. 
Peytel immediately drew the pistol, and fired, from the interior of 
the carriage, upon an individual whom he saw running by the side 
of the road. 

“Not knowing, as yet, that his wife had been hit, he jumped 
out on one side of the carriage, while Madame Peytel descended 
from the other ; and he fired a second pistol at his domestic, Louis 
Rey, whom he had just recognised. Redoubling his pace, he came 
u[) with Rey, and struck him, from behind, a blow with the 
hammer. Rey turned at this, and raised up his arm to strike his 
master with the pistol which he had just discharged at him ; but 
Peytel, more quick than he, gave the domestic a blow with the 
hammer, Avliich felled him to tlie ground (he fell face forwards), 
and then Peytel, bestriding the body, despatched him, although the 
brigand asked for mercy. 


214 


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“ He now began to think of liis wife ; and ran back, calling out 
her name repeatedly, and seeking for her, in vain, on both sides of 
the road. Arrived at the bridge of Andert, he recognised his wife, 
stretched in a field, covered with water, which bordered the Furans. 
This horrible discovery had so much the more astonished him, 
because he had no idea, until now, that his wife had been wounded: 
he endeavoured to draw her from the water ; and it was only after 
considerable exertions that he was enabled to do so, and to place 
her, with her face towards the ground, on the side of the road. 
Supposing that, here, she would be sheltered from any fjirther 
danger, and believing, as yet, that she was only wounded, he deter- 
mined to ask for help at a lone house, situated on the road towards 
Rossillon ; and at this instant he perceived, without at all being able 
to explain how, that his horse had followed him back to the spot, 
having turned back of its own accord, from the road to Belley. 

“ The house at which he knocked was inhabited by two men, of 
the name of Thannet, father and son, who opened the door to him, 
and whom he entreated to come to his aid, saying that his wife had 
just been assassinated by his servant. The elder Thannet approached 
to, and examined the body, and told Peytel that it was quite dead ; 
he and his son took up the corpse, and placed it in the bottom of 
the carriage, which they all mounted themselves, and pursued their 
route to Belley. In order to do so, they had to pass by Key’s body, 
on the road, which Peytel wished to crush under the wheels of his 
carriage. It was to rob him of 7500 francs, said Peytel, that the 
attack had been made.” 

Our friend, the Procureur’s Substitut, has dropped, here, the 
eloquent and pathetic style altogether, and only gives the unlucky 
prisoner’s narrative in the baldest and most unimaginative style. 
How is a jury to listen to such a fellow ? They ought to condemn 
him, if but for making such an uninteresting statement. Why not 
have helped poor Peytel with some of those rhetorical graces which 
have been so plentifully bestowed in the opening part of the act of 
accusation 1 He might have said : — 

“ Monsieur Peytel is an eminent notary at Belley ; he is a man 
distinguished for his literary and scientific acquirements ; he has 
lived long in the best society of the capital ; he had been but a few 
months married to that young and unfortunate lady, whose loss has 
plunged her bereaved husband into despair — almost into madness. 
Some early differences had marked, it is true, the commencement of 
their union ; but these, — which, as can be proved by evidence, were 
almost all the unhappy lady’s fault, — had happily ceased, to give 
place to sentiments far more delightful and tender. Gentlemen, 


THE CASE OF PEYTEL 


215 


Madame Peytel bore in her bosom a sweet pledge of future concord 
between herself and her husband : in three brief months she was to 
become a mother. 

“ In the exercise of his honourable profession, — in which, to 
succeed, a man must not only have high talents, but undoubted 
probity, — and, gentlemen. Monsieur Peytel did succeed — did inspire 
respect and confidence, as you, his neighbours, well know ; — in the 
exercise, I say, of his high calling. Monsieur Peytel, towards the 
end of October last, had occasion to make a journey in the neighbour- 
hood, and visit some of his many clients. 

“He travelled in his own carriage, his young wife beside him. 
Does this look like want of affection, gentlemen h or is it not a mark 
of love — of love and paternal care on his part towards the being 
with whom his lot in life was linked, — the mother of his coming 
child, — the young girl, who had everything to gain from the union 
with a man of his attainments of intellect,- his kind temper, his 
great experience, and his high position 1 In this manner they tra- 
velled, side by side, lovingly together. Monsieur Peytel was not a 
lawyer merely, but a man of letters and varied learning ; of the noble 
and sublime science of geology he was, especially, an ardent devotee.” 

(Suppose, here, a short panegyric upon geology. Allude to the 
creation of this mighty world, and then, naturally, to the Creator. 
Fancy the conversations which Peytel, a religious man,* might have 
with his young wife upon the subject.) 

“ Monsieur Peytel had lately taken into his service a man 
named Louis Rey. Key was a foundling, and had passed many 
years in a regiment — a school, gentlemen, where much besides 
bravery, alas ! is taught ; nay, where the spirit which familiarises 
one with notions of battle and death, I fear, may familiarise one 
with ideas, too, of murder. Rey, a dashing reckless fellow, from 
the army, had lately entered Peytel’s service ; was treated by him 
with the most singular kindness ; accompanied him (having charge 
of another vehicle) upon the journey before alluded to ; and knew 
that h is master carried with him a considerable sum of money ; 
for a man like Rey an enormous sum, 7500 francs. At midnight 
on the 1st of November, as Madame Peytel and her husband 
were returning home, an attack was made upon their carriage. 
Remember, gentlemen, the hour at which the attack was made; 
remember the sum of money that was in the carriage; and re- 
member that the Savoy frontier is within a league of the s2>ot 
where the desperate deed was done.” 

Now, my dear Briefless, ought not Monsieur Procureur, in 
common justice to Peytel, after he had so eloquently proclaimed, 

* He always went to mass ; it is in the evidence. 


215 


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not the facts, but the suspicions, which weighed against that 
worthy, to have given a similar florid account of the jorisoner’s 
case 1 Instead of this, you will remark, that it is the advocate’s 
endeavour to make Peytel’s statements as uninteresting in style as 
possible ; and then he demolishes them in the following way : — 

“ Scarcely was Peytel’s statement known, when the common 
sense of the public rose against it. Peytel had commenced his 
story upon the bridge of Andert, over tlie cold body of his wife. 
On the 2nd November he had developed it in detail, in the presence 
of the physicians, in the presence of the assembled neighbours — 
of the persons who, on the day previous only, were his friends. 
Finally, he had completed it in his interrogatories, his conversations. 
Ids writings, and letters to the magistrates ; and everywhere these 
words, repeated so often, were only received with a painful incre- 
dulity. The fact was that, besides the singular character which 
Peytel’s appearance, attitude, and talk had worn ever since the 
event, there was in his narrative an inexplicable enigma ; its con- 
tradictions and impossibilities were such, that calm persons were 
revolted at it, and that even friendship itself refused to believe it.” 

Thus Mr. Attorney speaks, not for himself alone, but for the 
whole French public ; whose opinions, of course, he knows. Peytel’s 
statement is discredited everywhere ; the statement which he 
had made over the cold body of his wife — the monster ! It is 
not enough simply to prove that the man committed the murder, 
but to make the jury violently angry against him, and cause 
them to shudder in the jury-box, as he exposes the horrid details 
of the crime. 

“Justice,” goes on Mr. Substitute (who answers for the feelings 
of everybody), “ disturbed by the }ireoccu]^ations of jmblic opinion, 
commenced, without delay, the most active researches. The bodies 
of the victims were submitted to the investigations of men of art ; 
the wounds and projectiles were examined ; the place where the 
event took place explored with care. The morality of the author 
of this frightful scene became the object of rigorous examination ; 
the exigeances of the prisoner, the forms attected by him, his calcu- 
lating silence, and his answers, coldly insulting, were feeble obstacles ; 
and justice at length arrived, by its prudence, and by the discoveries 
it made, to the most cruel point of certainty.” 

You see tliat a inan’s demeanour is here made a crime against 
liim ; and that Mr. Substitute wishes to consider him guilty, 


THE CASE OF PEYTEL 217 

because he has actually the audacity to hold his tongue. Now 
follows a touching description of the domestic, Louis Rey : — 

“ Louis Rey, a child of the Hospital at Lyons, was confided, at 
a very early age, to some honest country i)eople, with whom he 
stayed until he entered the army. At their house, and during this 
long period of time, his conduct, his intelligence, and the sweetness 
of his manners were such, that the family of his guardians became 
to him as an adopted family ; and his departure caused them the 
most sincere affliction. When Louis quitted tlie army, he returned 
to his benefactors, and was received as a son. They found him 
just as they had ever known him ” (I acknowledge that this patlios 
beats my humble defence of Peytel entirely), “ except that he had 
learned to read and write ; and the certificates of his commanders 
proved liim to be a good and gallant soldier. 

“ The necessity of creating some resources for himself obliged 
him to quit his friends, and to enter the service of Monsieur de 
Montrichard, a lieutenant of gendarmerie, from whom he received 
fresh testimonials of regard. Louis, it is true, might liave a fond- 
ness for wine and a passion for women ; but he had been a soldier, 
and these faults were, according to the witnesses, amply compen- 
sated for by his activity, his intelligence, and the agreeable manner 
in which he performed his service. In the month of July 1839, 
Rey quitted, voluntarily, the service of M. de Montrichard ; and 
Peytel, about this period, meeting him at Lyons, did not hesitate 
to attach him to his service. Whatever may be the j)risoner’s 
present language, it is certain that up to the day of Louis’s death, 
he served Peytel with diligence and fidelity. 

“More than once his master and mistress spoke well of him. 
Everybody who has worked, or been at the iiouse of Madame 
Peytel, has spoken in praise of his character; and, indeed, it may 
be said, that these testimonials were general. 

“ On the very night of the 1st of November, and immediately 
after the catastrophe, we remark how Peytel begins to make in- 
sinuations against his servant ; and how artfully, in order to render 
them more sure, he disseminates them through the different parts 
of his narrative. But, in the course of the proceeding, these 
charges have met with a most complete denial. Thus we find the 
disobedient servant who, at Pont d’Ain, refused to carry the money- 
chest to his master’s room, under the pretext that the gates of the 
inn were closed securely, occupied with tending the horses after their 
long journey: meanwhile Peytel was standing by, and neither master 
nor servant exchanged a word, and the witnesses who beheld them 
both have borne testimony to the zeal and care of the domestic. 


218 


THE PARIS SKETCH BOOK 


“ In like manner, we find that the servant, who was so remiss 
in the morning as to neglect to go to his master for orders, Avas 
ready for departure before seven o’clock, and had eagerly informed 
himself whether Monsieur and Madame Peytel were awake ; learn- 
ing from the maid of the inn, that they had ordered nothing for 
their breakfast. This man, who refused to carry with him a cover- 
ing for the car, was, on the contrary, ready to take oif his own 
cloak, and with it shelter articles of small value ; this man, who 
had been for many days so silent and gloomy, gave, on the contrary, 
many proofs of his gaiety — almost of his indiscretion, speaking, at 
all the inns, in terms of praise of his master and mistress. The 
waiter at the inn at Dauphin, says he Avas a tall young fellow, mild 
and good-natured ; ‘ we talked for some time about horses, and such 
things ; he seemed to be perfectly natural, and not preoccupied at all.’ 
At Pont d’Ain, he talked of his being a foundling; of the place 
where he had been brought up, and where he had served ; and finally, 
at Rossillon, an hour before his death, he conversed familiarly with 
the master of the port, and spoke on indifferent subjects. 

“ All Peytel’s insinuations against his servant had no other end 
than to show, in every point of Key’s conduct, the behaviour of 
a man who was premeditating attack. Of Avhat, in fact, does he 
accuse him? Of Avishing to rob him of 7500 francs, and of having 
had recourse to assassination in order to effect the robbery. But, 
for a premeditated crime, consider Avhat singular improvidence the 
person showed who had determined on committing it ; Avhat folly 
and Avhat weakness there is in the execution of it. 

“ How many insurmountable obstacles are there in the way of 
committing and profiting by crime ! On leaving Belley, Louis Rey, 
according to Peytel’s statement, knoAving that his master would 
return with money, provided himself with a holster pistol, which 
Madame Peytel had once before perceived among his effects. In 
Peytel’s cabinet there were some balls ; four of these were found in 
Key’s trunk, on the 6th of November. And, in order to commit 
the crime, this domestic had brought away with him a pistol, and 
no ammunition ; for Peytel has informed us that Rey, an hour 
before his departure from M^con, purchased six balls at a gun- 
smith’s. To gain his point, the assassin must immolate his victims ; 
for this, he has only one pistol, knowing, perfectly well, that Peytel, 
in all his travels, had two on his person ; knowing that, at a late 
hour of the night, his shot might fail of effect ; and that, in this 
case, he would be left to the mercy of his opponent. 

“ The execution of the crime is, according to Peytel’s account, 
still more singular. Louis does not get off the carriage until Peytel 
tells him to descend. He does not think of taking his master’s 


THE CASE OF PEYTEL 


219 

life until he is sure that the latter has his eyes open. It is dark, 
and the pair are covered in one cloak ; and Rey only fires at them 
at six paces’ distance : he fires at hazard, without disquieting him- 
self as to the choice of his victim ; and the soldier, who was bold 
enough to undertake this double murder, has not force nor courage 
to consummate it. He flies, carrying in his hand a useless whip, 
with a heavy mantle on his shoulders, in spite of the detonation 
of two pistols at his ears, and the rapid steps of an angry master 
in pursuit, which ought to have set him upon some better means 
of escape. And we find this man, full of youth and vigour, lying 
with his face to the ground, in the midst of a public road, falling 
without a struggle, or resistance, under the blows of a hammer ! 

“ And suppose the murderer had succeeded in his criminal pro- 
jects, what fruit could he have drawn from them'? — Leaving, on 
the road, the two bleeding bodies ; obliged to lead two carriages 
at a time, for fear of discovery; not able to return himself, after 
all the pains he had taken to speak, at every place at which they 
had stopped, of the money which his master was carrying with 
him ; too prudent to appear alone at Belley ; arrested at the 
frontier, by the excise ofticers, wdio would present an impassable 
barrier to him till morning, — what could he do, or hope to do 1 
The examination of the car has shown that Rey, at the moment of the 
crime, had neither linen, nor clothes, nor effects of any kind. There 
was found in his pockets, when the body was examined, no pass- 
port, nor certificate ; one of his pockets contained a ball, of large 
calibre, which he had shown, in play, to a girl, at the inn at Macon, 
a little horn-handled knife, a snuffbox, a little packet of gunpowder, 
and a purse, containing only a halfpenny and some string. Here 
is all the baggage, with which, after the execution of his homicidal 
})lan, Louis Rey intended to take refuge in a foreign country.* 
Beside these absurd contradictions, there is another remarkable 
fact, which must not be passed over ; it is this : — the pistol found 
by Rey is of antique form, and the original owner of it has been 
found. He is a curiosity-merchant at Lyons ; and, though he 
cannot affirm that Peytel w^as the person who bought this pistol 
of him, he perfectly recognises Peytel as having been a frequent 
customer at his shop ! 

“No, we may fearlessly affirm that Louis Rey was not guilty 
of the crime which Peytel lays to his charge. If, to those who 
knew him, his mild and open disposition, his military career, 
modest and without a stain, the touching regrets of his employers, 
are sufficient proofs of his innocence — the calm and candid observer, 
who considers how the crime was conceived, was executed, and 
* This sentence is taken from another part of the “ Acte d’accusation,” 


220 


THE PARIS SKETCH BOOK 


whfit consequences would have resulted from it, will likewise acquit 
him, and free him of the odious imputation which Peytel endeavours 
to cast upon his memory. 

“ But justice has removed the veil, with which an impious hand 
endeavoured to cover itself. Already, on the night of the 1st of 
November, suspicion was awakened by the extraordinary agitation 
of Peytel ; by those excessive attentions towards his wife, which 
came so late ; by that excessive and noisy grief, and by those cal- 
culated bursts of sorrow, which are such as Nature does not exhibit. 
The criminal, whom the public conscience had fixed upon ; the man 
whose frightful combinations have been laid bare, and whose false- 
hoods, step by step, have been exposed, during the proceedings 
previous to the trial ; the murderer, at whose hands a heart-stricken 
family, and society at large, demands an account of the blood of a 
wife ; — that murderer is Peytel.” 


When, my dear Briefless, you are a judge (as I make no doubt 
you will be, when you have left oft’ the club all night, cigar-smoking 
of mornings, and reading novels in bed), will you ever find it in 
your heart to order a fellow-sinner’s head olf upon such evidence 
as this 1 Because a romantic Substitut du Procureur du Roi chooses 
to compose and recite a little drama, and draw tears from juries, 
let us hope that severe Rhadamanthine judges are not to be melted 
by such trumpery. One wants but tlie description of the characters 
to render the piece complete, as thus : — 


Personages. 

Sebastien 
Peytel . 


Louis Rey 


Wolf . . 

Eelicite 
d’Alcazar 


I Meurtrier . 


Costumes. 

Habillement com- 
plet de notaire perfide : 
figure pale, barbe noire, 
cheveux noirs. 


Soldat retird, bon, 
brave, franc, jovial, ai- 
mant levin, les femmes, 
la gait^, ses maitres 
surtout; vrai Framjais, 
enfin 

Lieutenant de gendarmerie. 


Costume ordinaire ; 
il porte sur ses dpaules 
line couverture de 
cheval. 


I Femme et victime de Peytel. 


Mddecins, Villageois, Filles d’Auberge, Garmons d’Ecurie, &c. &c. 


La sc^ne se passe sur le pout d’Andert, entre Macon et Belley. 
II est minuit. La pluie tom be ; les tonnerres grondent. Le ciel 
est convert de images, et sillonn^ d’^clairs. 


THE CASE OF PEYTEL 


221 


All these personages are brought into play in the Procureiir’s 
drama : the villagers come in with their chorus ; the old lieutenant 
of gendarmes with his suspicions ; Key’s frankness and gaiety, the 
romantic circumstances of his birth, his gallantry and fidelity, are 
all introduced, in order to form a contrast with Peytel, and to call 
down the jury’s indignation against the latter. But are these 
proofs'? or anything like proofs? And the suspicions, that are to 
serve instead of proofs, what are they ? 

“ My servant, Louis Rey, was very sombre and reserved,” says 
Peytel ; “he refused to call me in the morning, to carry my money- 
chest to my room, to cover the open car when it rained.” The 
Prosecutor disproves this by stating that Rey talked with the inn 
maids and servants, asked if his master was up, and stood in the 
inn-yard, grooming the horses, with his master by his side, neither 
speaking to the other. Might he not have talked to the maids, and 
yet been sombre when speaking to his master t Might he not have 
neglected to call his master, and yet have asked whether he was 
awake ? Might he not have said that the inn gates were safe, out 
of hearing of the ostler witness? Mr. Substitute’s answers to 
Peytel’s statements are no answer at all. Every word Peytel said 
might be true, and. yet Louis Rey might not have committed the 
murder ; or every word might have been false, and yet Louis Rey 
might have committed the murder. 

“ Then,” says Mr. Substitute, “ how many obstacles are there 
to the commission of the crime ! And these are — 

“1. Rey provided himself with one holster pistol, to kill two 
people, knowing well that one of them had always a brace of pistols 
about him. 

“ 2. He does not think of filing until his master’s eyes are open: 
fires at six paces, not caring at whom he fires, and then runs away. 

“ 3. He could not have intended to kill his master, because he 
had no passport in his pocket, and no clothes ; and because he 
must have been detained at the frontier until morning; and be- 
cause he would have had to drive two carriages, in order to avoid 
suspicion. 

“ 4. And, a most singular circumstance, the very pistol which 
was found by his side had been bought at the shop of a man at 
Lyons, who perfectly recognised Peytel as one of his customers, 
though he could not say he had sold that particular weapon to 
Peytel.” 

Does it follow, from this, that Louis Rey is not the murderer — 
much more, that Peytel is? Look at argument No. 1. Rey had no 


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need to kill two people : he wanted the money, and not the blood. 
Suppose he had killed Peytel, would he not have mastered Madame 
Peytel easily ? — a weak woman, in an excessively delicate situation, 
incapable of much energy at the best of times. 

2. “ He does not fire till he knows his master’s eyes are open.” 
Why, on a stormy night, does a man driving a carriage go to sleep 1 
Was Rey to wait until his master snored'? “ He fires at six paces, 
not caring whom he hits ; ” — and might not this happen too 'I The 
night is not so dark but that he can see his master, in his usual 
place, driving. He fires and hits — whomi Madame Peytel, who 
had left her place, and rvas wrapped up ivith Peytel in his cloah. 
She screams out, “Husband, take your pistols.” Rey knows 
that his master has a brace, thinks that he has hit the wrong 
person, and, as Peytel fires on him, runs away. Peytel follows, 
hammer in hand ; as he comes up with the fugitive, he deals him a 
blow on the back of the head, and Rey falls — his face to the ground. 
Is there anything unnatural in this story "? — anything so monstrously 
unnatural, that is, that it might not be true 1 

3. These objections are absurd. Why need a man have change 
of linen'? If he had taken none for the journey, why should he 
want any for the escape? Why need he drive two carriages? — 
He might have driven both into the river, and Mrs. Peytel in one. 
Why is he to go to the douane, and thrust himself into the very jaws 
of danger ? Are there not a thousand ways for a man to pass a 
frontier? Do smugglers, when they have to pass from one country 
to another, choose exactly those spots where a police is placed ? 

And, finally, the gunsmith of Lyons, who knows Peytel quite 
well, cannot say that he sold the pistol to him ; that is, he did not 
sell the pistol to him ; for you have only one man’s word, in this 
case (Peytel’s), to the contrary; and the testimony, as far as it 
goes, is in his favour. I say, my lud, and gentlemen of the jury, 
that these objections of my learned friend, who is engaged for the 
Crown, are absurd, frivolous, monstrous; that to suspect away the 
life of a man upon such suppositions as these is wicked, illegal, and 
inhuman; and, what is more, that Louis Rey, if he wanted to com- 
mit the crime — if he wanted to possess himself of a large sum of 
money — chose the best time and spot for so doing ; and, no doubt, 
would have succeeded, if Fate had not, in a wonderful manner, 
caused Madame Peytel to take her husband’s 2 )lace, and receive the 
ball intended for him in her own head. 

But whether these susj)icions are absurd or not, hit or miss, it 
is the advocate’s duty, as it appears, to urge them. He wants to 
make as unfavourable an inii)ression as possible with regard to 
Peytel’s character ; he, therefore, must, for contrast’s sake, give all 


THE CASE OF PEYTEL 


223 


sorts of praise to his victim, and awaken every sympathy in the 
poor fellow’s favour. Having done this, as far as lies in his power, 
having exaggerated every circumstance that can he unfavourable to 
Peytel, and given his own tale in the baldest manner possible — 
having declared that Peytel is the murderer of his wife and servant, ' 
tlie Crown now proceeds to back this assertion, by showing what 
interested motives he had, and by relating, after its own fashion, 
the circumstances of his marriage. 

They may be told briefly here. Peytel was of a good family, of 
Macon, and entitled, at his mother’s death, to a considerable pro- 
perty. He had been educated as a notary, and had lately purchased 
a business, in that line, in Belley, for which he had paid a large 
sum of money; part of the sum, 15,000 francs, for which he had 
given bills, was still due. 

Near Belley, Peytel first met F^licit^ Alcazar, who was residing 
with her brother-in-law. Monsieur de Montrichard; and, knowing 
that the young lady’s fortune was considerable, he made an offer of 
marriage to the brother-in-law, who thought the match advantageous, 
and communicated on the subject with Fdlicitd’s mother, Madame 
Alcazar, at Paris. After a time Peytel went to Paris, to press his 
suit, and was accepted. There seems to have been no affectation 
of love on his side ; and some little repugnance on the part of the 
lady, who yielded, however, to the wishes of her parents, and was 
married. The parties began to quarrel on the very day of the 
marriage, and continued their disputes almost to the close of the 
unhappy connection. F^licit^ was half blind, passionate, sarcastic, 
clumsy in her person and manners, and ill educated ; Peytel, a man 
of considerable intellect and pretensions, who had lived for some 
time at Paris, where he had mingled with good literary society. 
The lady was, in fact, as disagreeable a person as could well be, and 
the evidence describes some scenes which took place between her 
and her husband, showing how deeply she must have mortified and 
enraged him. 

A charge very clearly made out against Peytel, is that of dis- 
honesty : he procured from the notary of whom he bought his place 
an acquittance in full, whereas there were 15,000 francs owing, as 
we have seen. He also, in the contract of marriage, which was to 
have resembled, in all respects, that between Monsieur Broussais 
and another Demoiselle Alcazar, caused an alteration to be made in 
his favour, which gave him command over his wife’s funded pro- 
perty, without furnishing the guarantees by which the other son-in- 
law was bound. And, almost immediately after his marriage, Peytel 
sold out of the funds a sum of 50,000 francs, that belonged to his 
wife, and used it for his own purposes. 


224 


THE PARIS SKETCH BOOK 


About two months after his marriage, Peytel presml his wife 
to make her will. He had made his, he said, leaving everything 
to her, in case of his death : after some parley, the poor thing 
consented.* This is a cruel suspicion against him ; and Mr. 
Substitute has no need to enlarge ui)on it. As for tlie previous 
fact, the dishonest statement about the 15,000 francs, there is 
nothing murderous in that — nothing which a man very eager to 
make a good marriage might not do. The same may be said of 
the suppression, in Peytel’s marriage contract, of the clause to be 
found in Broussais’s, placing restrictions upon the use of the 
wife’s money. Mademoiselle d’ Alcazar’s friends read the contract 
before tliey signed it, and might have refused it, had they so 
l)leased. 

After some disputes, which took jdace between Peytel and 
his wife (there were continual quarrels, and continual letters passing 
between them from room to room), the latter was induced to write 
him a couple of exaggerated letters, swearing “ by the ashes of her 
father ” that she would be an obedient wife to him, and entreating 
him to counsel and direct her. These letters were seen by members 
of the lady’s family, who, in the quarrels between the couple, always 
took the husband’s part. They were found in Peytel’s cabinet, 
after he had been arrested for the murder, and after he had had 
full access to all his papers, of which he destroyed or left as many 
as he pleased. The accusation makes it a matter of suspicion 
against Peytel, that he should have left these letters of his wife’s 
in a conspicuous situation. 

“All these circumstances,” says the accusation, “throw a 
frightful light upon Peytel’s plans. The letters and will of Madame 
Peytel are in the hands of her husband. Three months x)ass away, 
and this poor woman is brought to her home, in the middle of the 

* “Peytel,” says the act of accusation, “did not fail to see the danger 
which would menace him, if this will (which had escaped the magistrates in 
their search of Peytel’s papers) was discovered. He, therefore, instructed his 
agent to take possession of it, which he did, and the fact was not mentioned 
for several months afterwards. Peytel and his agent were called upon to ex- 
plain the circumstance, but refused, and their silence for a long time interrupted 
the ‘ instruction ’ ” (getting up of the evidence). “ All that could be obtained 
from them was an avow'al, that such a will existed, constituting Peytel his 
wife’s sole legatee ; and a promise, on their parts, to produce it before the 
court gave its sentence.” But why keep the will secret? The anxiety about 
it was surely absurd and unnecessary : the whole of Madame Peytel’s family 
knew that such a will was made. She had consulted her sister concerning it, 
who said— “ If there is no other way of satisfying him, make the wall ; ” and the 
mother, when she heard of it, cried out — “ Does he intend to poison her ?” 


THE CASE OF PEYTEL 225 

night, with two balls in her head, stretched at the bottom of her 
carnage, by the side of a peasant. 

“ What other than Sebastian Peytel could have committed this 
murder? — whom could it profit? — who but himself had an odious 
chain to break, and an inheritance to receive ? Why speak of the 
servant’s projected robbery? The pistols found by the side of 
Louis’s body, the balls bought by him at Macon, and those dis- 
covered at Belley among his eftects, were only the result of a 
perfidious combination. The pistol, indeed, which was found on 
the hill of Darde, on the night of the 1st of November, could only 
have belonged to Peytel, and must have been thrown by him, near 
the body of his domestic, with the paper which had before en- 
veloped it. Who had seen this pistol in the hands of Louis? 
Among all the gendarmes, workwomen, domestics, employed by 
Peytel and his brother-in-law, is there one single witness who had 
seen this weapon in Louis’s possession? It is true that Madame 
Peytel did, on one occasion, speak to M. de Montrichard of a 
pistol, which had nothing to do, however, with that found near 
Louis Rey.” 

Is this justice, or good reason? Just reverse the argument, 
and apply it to Rey. “ Who but Rey could have committed this 
murder? — who but Rey had a large sum of money to seize upon? — 
a pistol is found by his side, balls and powder in his pocket, other 
balls in his trunks at home. The pistol found near his body 
could not, indeed, have belonged to Peytel : did any man ever see 
it in his possession? The very gunsmith who sold it, and who 
knew Peytel, would he not have known that he had sold him this 
pistol ? At his own house, Peytel has a collection of weapons of 
all kinds; everybody has seen them — a man who makes such 
collections is anxious to display them. Did any one ever see this 
weapon ? — Not one. And Madame Peytel did, in her lifetime, 
remark a pistol in the valet’s possession. She was short-sighted, 
and could not particularise what kind of pistol it was; but she 
spoke of it to her husband and her brother-in-law.” This is not 
satisfactory, if you please ; but, at least, it is as satisfactory as the 
other set of suppositions. It is the very chain of argument which 
would have been brought against Louis Rey by this very same 
compiler of the act of accusation, had Rey survived, instead of 
Peytel, and had he, as most undoubtedly would have been the 
case, been tried for the murder. 

This argument was shortly put by Peytel’s counsel : — “ If 
Peytel had been killed by Rey in the struggle, ivoidd you not have 
found Rey guilty of the murder of his master and mistress ? ” 
5 P 


226 ^ 


THE PARIS SKETCH BOOK 


It is such a dreadful dilemma, that I wonder how judges and 
lawyers could have dared to persecute Peytel in the manner in 
which they did. 

After the act of accusation, which lays down all the suppositions 
against Peytel as facts, which will not admit the truth of one of 
the prisoner’s allegations in his own defence, comes the trial. The 
Judge is quite as impartial as the preparer of the indictment, as 
will be seen by the following specimens of his interrogatories : — 

Judge. The act of accusation finds in your statement contra- 
dictions, improbabilities, impossibilities. Thus your domestic, who 
had determined to assassinate you, in order to rob you, and who 
must have calculated upon the consequence of a failure, had neither 
passport nor money upon him. This is very unlikely ; because he 
could not have gone far with only a single halfpenny, which was all 
he had. 

Prisoner. My servant was known, and often passed the frontier 
without a passport. 

Judge. Your domestic had to assassinate two persons, and had 
no weapon but a single pistol. He had no dagger ; and the only 
thing found on him was a knife. 

Prisoner. In the car there were several turner’s implements, 
which he might have used. 

Judge. But he had not those arms upon him, because you 
pursued him immediately. He had, according to you, only this old 
pistol. 

Prisoner. I have nothing to say. 

Judge. Your domestic, instead of flying into woods, which skirt 
the road, ran straight forward on the road itself : this, again, is 
very unlikely. 

Prisoner. This is a conjecture I could answer by another con- 
jecture ; I can only reason on the facts. 

Judge. How far did you pursue him % 

Prisoner. I don’t know exactly. 

Judge. You said “ two hundred paces.” 

No answer from the prisoner. 

Judge. Your domestic was young, active, robust, and tall. He 
was ahead of you. You were in a carriage, from which you had 
to descend : you had to take your pistols from a cushion, and then 
your hammer ; — how are we to believe that you could have caught 
him, if he ran h It is impossible. 

Prisoner. I can’t explain it : I think that Rey had some defect 
in one leg. I, for my part, run tolerably fast. 

Judge. At what distance from him did you fire your first shot ? 


THE CASE OF PEYTEL 


227 


Prisoner, I can’t tell. 

Judge. Perhaps he was not running when you fired. 

Prisoner. I saw him running. 

Judge. In what position was your wife ? 

Prisoner. She was leaning on my left arm, and the man was 
on the right side of the carriage. 

Judge. The shot must have been fired d bout portant, because 
it burned the eyebrows and lashes entirely. The assassin must have 
passed his pistol across your breast. 

Prisoner. The shot was not fired so close ; I am convinced of 
it : professional gentlemen will prove it. 

Judge. That is what you pretend^ because you understand 
perfectly the consequences of admitting the fact. Your wife was 
hit with two balls — one striking downwards, to the right, by the 
nose, the other going horizontally through the cheek, to the left. 

Prisoner. The contrary will be shown by the witnesses called 
for the purpose. 

Judge. It is a very unlucky combination for you that these 
balls, which went, you say, from the same pistol, should have taken 
two different directions. 

Prisoner. I can’t dispute about the various combinations of 
fire-arms — professional persons will be heard. 

Judge. According to your statement, your wife said to you, 
“My poor husband, take your pistols.” 

Prisoner. She did. 

Judge. In a manner quite distinct. 

Prisoner. Yes. 

Judge. So distinct that you did not fancy she was hit % 

Prisoner. Yes ; that is the fact. 

Judge. Here, again, is an impossibility ; and nothing is more 
precise than the declaration of the medical men. They affirm that 
your wife could not have spoken — their report is unanimous. 

Prisoner. I can only oppose to it quite contrary opinions from 
professional men, also : you must hear them. 

J'lvdge. What did your wife do next % 

Judge. You deny the statements of the witnesses (they related 
to Peytel’s demeanour and behaviour, which the judge wishes to 
show were very unusual ; — and what if they were T). Here, how- 
ever, are some mute witnesses, whose testimony you will not 
perhaps refuse. Near Louis Key’s body was found a horse-cloth, a 
pistol, and a whip. . . . Your domestic must have had this cloth 
upon him when he went to assassinate you : it was wet and heavy. 
An assassin disencumbers himself of anything that is likely to 


228 


THE PARIS SKETCH BOOK 


impede him, especially when he is going to struggle witli a man as 
young as himself. 

Prisoner, My servant liad, I believe, this covering on his body ; 
it might be useful to him to keep the priming of his pistol dry. 

Tlie President caused the cloth to be opened, and sliowed that 
there was no hook, or tie, by which it could be held together ; and 
that Key must have held it with one hand, and, in the other, his 
whip, and tlie pistol with which he intended to commit the crime ; 
which was impossible. 

Prisoner, These are only conjectures.” 

And what conjectures, my God ! upon which to take away the 
life of a man. Jeffreys, or Fouquier Tinville, could scarcely have 
dared to make such. Such prejudice, such bitter persecution, such 
priming of the jury, such monstrous assumptions and unreason — 
fancy them coming from an impartial judge ! The man is worse 
than the public accuser. 

“ Rey,” says the Judge, “ could not have committed the murder, 
because he had no money in his pocket, to Jly, in case of failure,'^ 
And what is the precise sum that his lordship thinks necessary for 
a gentleman to have, before he makes such an attempt? Are the 
men who murder for money usually in possession of a certain inde- 
pendence before they begin? How much money was Rey, — a servant, 
who loved wine and women, had been stopping at a score of inns’ on 
the road, and had, probably, an annual income of four hundred 
francs, — how much money was Rey likely to have ? 

“ Your servant had to assassinate two 2 m'sons,” This I have 
mentioned before. Why had he to assassinate two persons,* wlien 
one was enough ? If he had killed Peytel, could he not have seized 
and gagged his wife immediately ? 

“ Your domestic 7'an straight forivard, instead of taking to the 
woods, by the side of the road : this is very unlikely, How does 
his worship know ? Can any judge, however enlightened, tell the 
exact road that a man will take, who has just missed a coup of 
murder, and is pursued by a man who is firing pistols at him? 
And has a judge a right to instruct a jury in this way, as to what 
they shall, or shall not, believe ? 

“You have to run after an active man, who has the start of 
you ; to jump out of a carriage ; to take your pistols ; and then, 
your hammer. This is impossible, By heavens ! does it not 

* M. Balzac’s theory of the case is, that Rey had intrigued with Madame 
Peytel ; having known her previous to her marriage, when she was staying in 
the house of her brother-in-law, Monsieur de Montrichard, where Rey had 
been a servant. 


THE CASE OF PEYTEL 


229 


make a man’s blood boil, to read such blundering blood-seeking 
sophistry ? This man, when it suits him, shows that Rey would be 
slow in his motions; and, when it suits liim, declares that Rey 
ought to be quick ; declares, ex cathedrd^ what pace Rey should go, 
and what direction he should take; shows, in a breath, that he 
must have run faster than Peytel ; and then, that he could not run 
fast, because the cloak clogged him ; settles how he is to be dressed 
when he commits a murder, and what money he is to have in his 
pocket; gives these impossible suppositions to the jury, and tells 
them that the previous statements are impossible ; and, finally, 
informs them of the precise manner in which Rey must have stood 
holding his horse-cloth in one liand, his whip and pistol in the other, 
when he made the supposed attempt at murder. Now, what is the 
size of a horse-cloth 'I Is it as big as a pocket-handkerchief? Is 
there no possibility that it might hang over one slioulder : that the 
whip should be held under that very arm ? Did you never see a 
carter so carry it, his hands in his pockets all the while ? Is it 
monstrous, abhorrent to nature, that a man should fire a pistol from 
under a. cloak on a rainy day ? — that he should, after firing the shot, 
be frightened, and run ; run straight before him, with the cloak on 
his shoulders, and the weapon in his hand? Peytel’s story is 
possible, and very possible ; it is almost probable. Allow that Rey 
had the cloth on, and you allow that he must have been clogged in 
his motions ; that Peytel may have come up with him — felled him 
with a blow of the hammer ; the doctors say that he would have so 
fallen by one blow — he would have fallen on his face, as he was 
found : the paper might have been thrust into his breast, and 
tumbled out as he fell. Circumstances far more impossible have 
occurred ere this ; and men have been hanged for them ; who were 
as innocent of the crime laid to their charge as the judge on the 
bench who convicted them. 

In like manner, Peytel may not have committed the crime 
charged to him ; and Mr. Judge, with his arguments as to possibili- 
ties and impossibilities,— Mr. Public Prosecutor, with his romantic 
narrative and inflammatory harangues to the jury, — may have 
used all these powers to bring to death an innocent man. From 
the animus with which the case had been conducted from beginning 
to end, it was easy to see the result. Here it is, in the words of 
the provincial paper : — 

“ Bourg : 2^th October 1839. 

“The condemned Peytel has just undergone his punishment, 
which took place four days before the anniversary of his crime. 
The terrible drama of the bridge of Andert, which cost the life of 


230 


THE PARIS SKETCH BOOK 


two persons, has just terminated on the scaffold. Mid-day had just 
sounded on the clock of the Palais : the same clock tolled midnight 
when, on the 30th of August, his sentence was pronounced. 

“ Since the rejection of his appeal in Cassation, on which his 
principal hopes were founded, Peytel spoke little of his petition 
to the King. The notion of transportation was that which he 
seemed to cherish most. However, he made several inquiries from 
the gaoler of the prison, when he saw him at meal-times, with 
regard to the place of execution, the usual horn-, and other details 
on the subject. From that period, the words ‘ Champ de Foire ’ 
(the fair-field, where the execution was to be held) were frequently 
used by him in conversation. 

“Yesterday, the idea that the time had arrived seemed to be 
more strongly than ever impressed upon him ; especially after the 
departure of the curd, who latterly has been with him every day. 
The documents connected with the trial had arrived in the morning. 
He was ignorant of this circumstance, but sought to discover from 
his guardians what they tried to hide from him ; and to find out 
whether his petition was rejected, and when he was to die. 

“Yesterday, also, he had written to demand the presence of 
his counsel, M. Margerand, in order that he might have some con- 
versation with him, and regidate his affairs, before he ; he 

did not write down the word, but left in its place a few points 
of the pen. 

“ In the evening, whilst he was at supper, he begged earnestly 
to be allowed a little wax-candle, to finish what he was writing : 
otherwise, he said. Time might fail. This was a new indirect 
manner of repeating his ordinary question. As light, up to that 
evening, had been refused him, it was thought best to deny him 
in this, as in former instances ; otherwise his suspicions might 
have been confirmed. The keeper refused his demand. 

“ This morning, Monday, at nine o’clock, the Greffier of the 
Assize Court, in fulfilment of the painful duty which the law 
imposes upon him, came to the prison, in company with the curd 
of Bourg, and announced to the convict that his petition was re- 
jected, and that he had only three hours to live. He received this 
fatal news with a great deal of calmness, and showed himself to be 
no more affected than he had been on the trial. ‘ I am ready ; but 
I wish they had given me four-and-twenty hours’ notice,’ — were 
all the words he used. 

“The Greffier now retired, leaving Peytel alone with the 
curd, who did not thenceforth quit him. Peytel breakfasted at 
ten o’clock. 

“At eleven, a picquet of mounted gendarmerie and infantry 


THE CASE OF PEYTEL 


231 


took their station upon the place before the prison, where a great 
concourse of people had already assembled. An open car was 
at the door. Before he went out, Peytel asked the gaoler for a 
looking-glass ; and having examined his face for a moment, said, 

‘ At least, the inhabitants of Bourg will see that I have not grown 
thin.’ 

“As twelve o’clock sounded, the prison gates opened, an aide 
appeared, followed by Peytel, leaning on the arm of the curd. 
Peytel’s face was pale, he had a long black beard, a blue cap on 
his head, and his greatcoat flung over his shoulders, and buttoned 
at the neck. 

“ He looked about at the place and the crowd ; he asked if the 
carriage would go at a trot ; and on being told that that would be 
difficult, he said he would prefer walking, and asked what the road 
was. He immediately set out, walking at a firm and rapid pace. 
He was not bound at all. 

“An immense crowd of people encumbered the two streets 
through which he had to pass to the place of execution. He cast 
his eyes alternately upon them and upon the guillotine, which was 
before him. 

“ Arrived at the foot of the scaffold, Peytel embraced the cur^, 
and bade him adieu. He then embraced him again ; perhaps, for 
his mother and sister. He then mounted the steps rapidly, and 
gave himself into the hands of the executioner, who removed liis 
coat and cap. He asked how he was to place himself, and, on a 
sign being made, he flung himself briskly on the plank, and stretched 
his neck. In another moment he was no more. 

“ The crowd, which had been quite silent, retired, profoundly 
moved by the sight it had witnessed. As at all executions, there 
was a very great number of women present. 

“Under the scaffold there had been, ever since the morning, a 
coffin. The family had asked for his remains, and had them im- 
mediately buried, privately : and thus the unfortunate man’s head 
escaped the modellers in wax, several of whom had arrived to take 
an impression of it.” 

Down goes the axe ; the poor wretch’s head rolls gasping into 
the basket ; the spectators go home, pondering ; and Mr. Execu- 
tioner and his aides, have, in half-an-hour, removed all traces of 
the august sacrifice, and of the altar on which it had been per- 
formed. Say, Mr. Briefless, do you think that any single person, 
meditating murder, would be deterred therefrom by beholding this 
— nay, a thousand more executions 1 It is not for moral improve- 
ment, as I take it, nor for opportunity to make appropriate remarks 


232 


THE PARIS SKETCH BOOK 


upon the punishment of crime, tliat people make a holiday of a 
killing-day, and leave their homes and occupations to flock and 
witness the cutting off* of a head. Do we crowd to see Mr. Mac- 
ready in the new tragedy, or Mademoiselle Elssler in her last new 
ballet and flesh-coloured stockinnet pantaloons, out of a pure love 
of abstract poetry and beauty ; or from a strong notion that we 
shall be excited, in different ways, by the actor and the dancer? 
And so, as we go to have a meal of fictitious terror at the tragedy, 
of something more questionable in the ballet, we go for a glut of 
blood to the execution. The lust is in every man’s nature, more 
or less. Did you ever witness a wrestling or boxing match ? The 
first clatter of the kick on the shins, or the first drawing of blood, 
makes the stranger shudder a little ; but soon the blood is his chief 
enjoyment, and he thirsts for it with a fierce delight. It is a fine 
grim pleasure that we have in seeing a man killed ; and I make no 
doubt that the organs of destructiveness must begin to throb and 
swell as we witness the delightful savage spectacle. 

Three or four years back, when Fieschi and Lacenaire were 
executed, I made attempts to see the execution of both ; but was 
disappointed in both cases. In the first instance, the day for 
Fieschi’s death was, purposely, kept secret; and he was, if I 
remember rightly, executed at some remote quarter of the town. 
But it would have done a philanthropist good to witness the scene 
which we saw on the morning when his execution did not take 
place. 

It was carnival time, and the rumour had pretty generally been 
carried abroad that he was to die on that morning. A friend, who 
accompanied me, came many miles, through the mud and dark, in 
order to be in at the death. We set out before light, floundering 
through the muddy Champs Elys^es ; where, besides, were many 
other persons floundering, and all bent upon the same errand. We 
passed by the Concert of Musard, then held in the Rue St. Honord; 
and round this, in the wet, a number of coaches were collected. 
The ball was just up, and a crowd of people, in hideous masquerade, 
drunk, tired, dirty, dressed in horrible old frippery, and daubed 
with filthy rouge, were trooping out of the place : tipsy women and 
men, shrieking, jabbering, gesticulating, as the French will do ; 
parties swaggering, staggering forwards, arm in arm, reeling to and 
fro across the street, and yelling songs in chorus : hundreds of 
these were bound for the show, and we thought ourselves lucky in 
finding a vehicle to the execution place, at the Barrifere d’Enfer. 
As we crossed the river and entered the Enfer Street, crowds of 
students, black workmen, and more drunken devils from more 
carnival balls, were filling it ; and on the grand place there were 


THE CASE OF PEYTEL 


233 


thousands of these assembled, looking out for Fieschi and his 
cortege. We waited and waited ; but alas ! no fun for us that 
morning : no throat-cutting ; no august spectacle of satisfied 
justice ; and the eager spectators were obliged to return, disap- 
pointed of their expected breakfast of blood. It would have been 
a fine scene, that execution, could it but have taken place in the 
midst of the mad mountebanks and tipsy strumpets who had flocked 
so far to witness it, wishing to wind up the delights of their carnival 
by a bonne-bouche of a murder. 

The other attempt was equally unfortunate. We arrived too 
late on the gi’ound to be present at the execution of Lacenaire and 
his co-mate in murder, Avril. But as we came to the ground (a 
gloomy round space, within the barrier — three roads lead to it ; 
and, outside, you see the wine-shops and restaurateurs of the barrier 
looking gay and inviting) — as we came to the ground, we only found, 
in the midst of it, a little pool of ice, just partially tinged with red. 
Two or three idle street-boys were dancing and stamping about this 
pool ; and when I asked one of them whether the execution had 
taken place, he began dancing more madly than ever, and shrieked 
out with a loud fantastical theatrical voice, “ Venez tons. Messieurs 
et Dames, voyez ici le sang du monstre Lacenaire, et de son com- 
pagnon le traitre Avril,” or words to that effect ; and straightway 
all the other gamins screamed out the words in chorus, and took 
hands and danced round the little puddle. 

0 august Justice, your meal was followed by a pretty appro- 
priate grace ! Was any man, who saw the show, deterred, or 
frightened, or moralised in any way 1 He had gratified his appetite 
for blood, and this was all. There is something singularly pleasing, 
both in the amusement of execution-seeing, and in the results. You 
are not only delightfully excited at the time, but most pleasingly 
relaxed afterwards ; the mind, which has been wound up painfully 
until now, becomes quite complacent and easy. There is something 
agreeable in the misfortunes of others, as the philosopher has told 
us. Remark what a good breakfast you eat after an execution; 
how pleasant it is to cut jokes after it, and upon it. This merry 
pleasant mood is brought on by the blood tonic. 

But, for God’s sake, if we are to enjoy this, let us do so in 
moderation ; and let us, at least, be sure of a man’s guilt before we 
murder him. To kill him, even with the full assurance that he is 
guilty, is hazardous enough. Who gave you the right to do so? — 
you, who cry out against suicides as iminous and contrary to 
Christian law ? What use is there in killing him ? You deter no 
one else from committing the crime by so doing : you give us, to be 
sure, half-an-hour’s pleasant entertainment ; but it is a great question 


234 . 


THE PARIS SKETCH BOOK 


whether we derive much moral profit from the sight. If you want 
to keep a murderer from further inroads upon society, are there not 
plenty of hulks and prisons, Cod wot; treadmills, galleys, and 
houses of correction ? Above all, as in the case of Sebastian Peytel 
and his family, there have been two deaths already : was a third 
death absolutely necessary? and, taking the fallibility of judges 
and lawyers into his heart, and remembering the thousand instances 
of unmerited punishment that have been suffered, upon similar and 
stronger evidence before, can any man declare, positively and upon 
his oath, that Peytel was guilty, and that this was not the third 
murder in the family ? 


FRENCH DRAMAS AND MELODRAMAS 



HERE are three kinds of drama in France, which you may 
subdivide as much as you please. 


There is the old classical drama, well-nigh dead, and full 
time too : old tragedies, in which half-a-dozen characters appear, and 
spout sonorous Alexandrines for half-a-dozen hours. The fkir Rachel 
has been trying to revive this genre^ and to imtomb Racine ; but 
be not alarmed, Racine will never come to life again, and cause 
audiences to weep as of yore. Madame Rachel can only galvanise 
the corpse, not revivify it. Ancient French tragedy, red-heeled, 
patched, and be-periwigged, lies in the grave ; and it is only the 
ghost of it that we see, which the fair Jewess has raised. There 
are classical comedies in verse, too, wherein the knavish valets, 
rakish heroes, stolid old guardians, and smart free-spoken serving- 
women, discourse in Alexandrines as loud as the Horaces or the Cid. 
An Englishman will seldom reconcile himself to the roulement of the 
verses, and the painful recurrence of the rhymes ; for my part, I had 
rather go to Madame Saqui’s, or see Deburau dancing on a rope : his 
lines are quite as natural and poetical. 

Then there is the comedy of the day, of which Monsieur Scribe 
is the father. Good heavens ! with what a number of gay colonels, 
smart widows, and silly husbands has that gentleman peopled the 
play-books ! How that unfortunate seventh commandment has been 
maltreated by him and his disciples ! You will see four pieces, at 
the Gymnase, of a night; and so sime as you see them, four husbands 
shall be wickedly used. When is this joke to cease 1 Mon Dieu ! 
Play-writers have handled it for about two thousand years, and the 
public, like a great baby, must have the tale repeated to it over and 
over again. 

Finally, there is the Drama, that great monster which has 
sprung into life of late years ; and which is said, but I don’t believe 
a word of it, to have Shakspeare for a father. If Monsieur Scribe’s 
plays may be said to be so many ingenious examples how to break 
one commandment, the drame is a grand and general chaos of them 
all ; nay, several crimes are added, not prohibited in the Decalogue, 


236 


THE PARIS SKETCH BOOK 


which was written before dramas were. Of the drama, Victor Hugo 
and Dumas are the well-known and respectable guardians. Every 
piece Victor Hugo has written, since “ Hernani,” has contained a 
monster— a delightful monster, saved by one virtue. There is 
Triboulet, a foolish monster ; Lucr^ce Borgia, a maternal monster ; 
Mary Tudor, a religious monster; Monsieur Quasimodo, a hump- 
backed monster ; and others that might be named, whose monstrosi- 
ties we are induced to pardon — nay, admiringly to witness — because 
they are agreeably mingled with some exquisite display of affection. 
And, as the great Hugo has one monster to each play, the great 
Dumas has ordinarily, half-a-dozen, to whom murder is nothing ; 
common intrigue, and simple breakage of the before-mentioned com- 
mandment, notliing ; but who live and move in a vast, delightful 
complication of crime that cannot be easily conceived in England, 
much less described. 

When I think over the number of crimes that I have seen 
Mademoiselle Georges, for instance, commit, I am filled with wonder 
at her greatness, and the gi-eatness of the poets who have conceived 
these charming horrors for her. I have seen her make love to, and 
murder, her sons, in the “ Tour de Nesle.” I have seen her j^oison 
a company of no less than nine gentlemen, at Ferrara, with an 
affectionate son in the number ; I have seen her, as Madame de 
Brinvilliers, kill oft* numbers of respectable relations in the first four 
acts ; and, at the last, be actually burned at the stake, to which she 
comes shuddering, ghastly, barefooted, and in a white sheet. Sweet 
excitement of tender sympathies ! Such tragedies are not so good 
as a real downright execution ; but, in point of interest, the next 
thing to it : with what a number of moral emotions do they fill the 
breast ; with what a hatred for vice, and yet a true pity and respect 
for that grain of virtue that is to be found in us all : our bloody, 
daughter-loving Brinvilliers ; our warm-hearted, poisonous Lucretia 
Borgia ; above all, what a smart appetite for a cool supper after- 
wards, at the Cafd Anglais, when the horrors of the play act as a 
piquant sauce to the supper ! 

Or, to speak more seriously, and to come, at last, to the 
point. After having seen most of the grand dramas whicli 
liave been produced at Paris for the last half-dozen years, and 
thinking over all that one has seen, — the fictitious murders, rapes, 
adulteries, and other crimes, by which one has been interested 
and excited, — a man may take leave to be heartily ashamed of the 
manner in which he has spent his time; and of the hideous 
kind of mental intoxication in which he has permitted himself 
to indulge. 

Nor are simple society outrages the only sort of crime in which 


FRENCH DRAMAS AND MELODRAMAS 237 

the spectator of Paris plays has permitted himself to indulge : he 
has recreated himself with a deal of blasphemy besides, and has 
passed many pleasant evenings in beholding religion defiled and 
ridiculed. 

Allusion has been made, in a former paper, to a fashion that 
lately obtained in France, and which went by the name of Catholic 
reaction; and as, in this happy country, fashion is everything, we 
have had not merely Catholic pictures and quasi-religious books, 
but a number of Catholic plays have been produced, very edifying 
to the frequenters of the theatres or the Boulevards, who have 
learned more about religion from these performances than they 
have acquired, no doubt, in the whole of their lives before. In the 
course of a very few years we have seen — “The Wandering Jew” ; 
“ Belshazzar’s Feast ” ; “ Nebuchadnezzar ” ; and the “ Massacre 
of the Innocents”; “Joseph and his Brethren”; “The Passage of 
the Red Sea”; and “The Deluge.” 

The great Dumas, like Madame Sand before mentioned, has 
brought a vast quantity of religion before the footlights. There 
was his famous tragedy of “ Caligula,” which, be it spoken 
to the shame of the Paris critics, was coldly received ; nay, 
actually hissed, by them. And whyl Because, says Dumas, it 
contained a great deal too much piety for the rogues. The public, 
he says, was much more religious, and understood him at once. 

“As for the critics,” says he nobly, “let those who cried 
out against the immorality of Antony and Marguerite de Bourgogne, 
reproach me for the chastity of Messalina^ (This dear creature 
is the heroine of the play of “ Caligula.”) “ It matters little to 
me. These people have but seen the form of my work ; they have 
walked round the tent, but have not seen the* arch which it 
covered ; they have examined the vases and candles of the altar, 
but have not opened the tabernacle ! 

“ The public alone has, instinctively, comprehended that 
there was, beneath this outward sign, an inward and mysterious 
grace : it followed the action of the piece in all its serpentine 
windings ; it listened for four hours, with pious attention (avec 
recueillement et religion)^ to the sound of this rolling river of 
thoughts, which may have appeared to it new and bold, perhaps, 
but chaste and grave ; and it retired, with its head on its 
breast, like a man who had just perceived, in a dream, the solution 
of a problem which he has long and vainly sought in his waking 
hours.” 

You see that not only Saint Sand is an apostle, in her 
way ; but Saint Dumas is another. We have people in England 
who write for bread, like Dumas and Sand, and are paid so 


238 


THE PARIS SKETCH BOOK 


much for their line ; but tliey don’t set up for prophets. 
Mrs. Trollope has never declared that her novels are inspired 
by Heaven ; Mr, Buckstone has written a great number of farces, 
and never talked about the altar and the tabernacle. Even 
Sir Edward Bulwer (who, on a similar occasion, when the critics 
found fault with a play of his, answered them by a pretty 
decent declaration of his own merits) never ventured to say 
that he had received a divine mission, and was uttering five-act 
revelations. 

All things considered, the tragedy of “Caligula” is a decent 
tragedy ; as decent as the decent characters of the hero and heroine 
can allow it to be ; it may be almost said, provokingly decent : but 
this, it must be remembered, is the characteristic of the modern 
French school (nay, of the English school too) ; and if the writer 
take the character of a remarkable scoundrel, it is ten to one but he 
turns out an amiable fellow, in whom we have all the warmest 
sympathy. Caligula is killed at the end of the performance; Messa- 
lina is comparatively well-behaved; and the sacred part of the 
performance, the tabernacle-characters apart from the mere “ vase ” 
and “ candlestick ” personages, may be said to be depicted in the 
person of a Christian convert, Stella, who has had the good fortune 
to be converted by no less a person than Mary 'Magdalene, when 
she, Stella, was staying on a visit to her aunt, near Narbonne. 

Stella {continuant). Voilk 

Que je vois s’avancer, sans pilote et sans rames, 

Une barque portant deux hommes et deux femmes, 

Et, spectacle inou'i qui me ravit encor, 

Tous quatre avaient au front une aureole d’or 
D'ou partaient des rayons de si vive lumiere 
Que je fus obligee a baisser la paupiere ; 

Et, lorsque je rouvris les yeux avec effroi, 

Les voyageurs divins etaient auprfe de moi. 

Un jour de chacun d’eux et dans toute sa gloire 
Je te raconterai la merveilleuse histoire, 

Et tu I’adoreras, j’espere ; en ce moment, 

Ma mere, il te suffit de savoir seulement 
Que tous quatre venaient du fond de la Syrie : 

Un edit les avait bannis de leur patrie, 

Et, se faisant bourreaux, des hommes irrites, 

Sans avirons, sans eau, sans pain et garrottes, 

Sur une frele barque echouee au rivage, 

Les avaient k la mer pousses dans un orage. 

Mais a peine I’esquif eut-il touche les flots 
Qu’au cantique, chante par les saints matelots, 

L’ouragan replia ses ailes fremissantes, 

Que la mer aplanit ses vagues mugissantes. 


FRENCH DRAMAS AND MELODRAMAS 239 

Et qu’un soleil plus pur, reparaissant aux cieux, 

Enveloppa I’esquif d’un cercle radieux ! . . . 

Jimia. Mais c’etait un prodige. 

Stella. Un miracle, ma mere ! 

Leurs fers tomberent seuls, I’eau cessa d’etre amere, 

Et deux fois chaque jour le bateau fut convert 
D’une manne pareille a celle du desert : 

C’est ainsi que, pousses par une main celeste, 

Je les vis aborder. 

J unia. Oh ! dis vlte le reste ! 

Stella. A I’aube, trois d’entre eux quitterent la maison : 

Marthe prit le chemin qui mene a Tarascon, 

Lazare et Maximin celui de Massilie, 

Et celle qui resta . . . c’ etait la plus jolie [how truly French !], 
Nous faisant appeler vers le milieu du jour, 

Demanda si les monts ou les bois d’alentour 
Cachaient quelque retraite inconnue et profonde, 

Qui la pht separer a tout jamais du monde. . . . 

Aquila se souvint qu’il avait penetre 
Dans un antre sauvage et de tons ignore, 

Grotte creus^e aux flancs de ces Alpes sublimes 
Ou I’aigle fait son aire au-dessus des abimes. 

II offrit cet asile, et des le lendemain 

Tons deux, pour I’y guider, nous etions en chemin. 

Le soir du second jour nous touch^mes sa base : 

Lk, tombant a genoux dans une sainte extase, 

Elle pria longtemps, puis vers I’antre inconnu, 

Denouant sa chaussure, elle marcha pied nu. 

Nos prieres, nos cris resterent sans reponses : 

Au milieu des cailloux, des epines, des ronces, 

Nous la vimes monter, un baton k la main, 

Et ce n’est qu’arrivee au terme du chemin, 

Qu’enfin elle tomba sans force et sans haleine , . , 

Junia. Comment la nommait-on, ma fille ? 

Stella. Madeline.” 

Walking, says Stella, by the sea-shore, 

“ A bark drew near, that had nor sail nor oar ; two women and 
two men the vessel bore : each of that crew, ’twas wondrous to 
behold, wore round his head a ring of blazing gold ; from which such 
radiance glittered all around, that I was fain to look towards the 
ground. And when once more I raised my frightened eyne, before 
me stood the travellers divine; their rank, the glorious lot that 
each befell, at better season, mother, will I tell. Of this anon : the 
time will come when thou shalt learn to worship as I worship now. 
Suffice it, that from Syria’s land they came ; an edict from their 
country banished them. Fierce angry men had seized upon the 


240 


THE PARIS SKETCH BOOK 


four, and launched them in that vessel from the sliore. They launched 
these victims on the waters rude ; nor rudder gave to steer, nor 
bread for food. As the doomed vessel cleaves the stormy main, 
that pious crew uplifts a sacred strain ; the angry waves are silent 
as it sings ; the storm, awe-stricken, folds its quivering wings. A 
purer sun appears the heavens to light, and wraps the little bark in 
radiance bright. 

Junia. Sure, ’twas a prodigy. 

Stella. A miracle. Spontaneous from their hands the fetters 
fell. The salt sea- wave grew fresh ; and, twice a day, manna (like 
that which on the desert lay) covered the bark, and fed them on 
their way. Thus, hither led, at Heaven’s divine behest, I saw 
them land 

Junia. My daughter, tell the rest. 

Stella. Three of the four our mansion left at dawn. One, 
Martha, took the road to Tarascon ; Lazarus and Maximin to 
Massily ; but one remained (the fairest of the three), who asked us 
if, i’ the woods or mountains near, there chanced to be some cavern 
lone and drear ; where she might hide, for ever, from all men. It 
chanced, my cousin knew of such a den ; deep hidden in a moun- 
tain’s hoary breast, on which the eagle builds his airy nest. And 
thither offered he the saint to guide. Next day upon the journey 
forth we hied ; and came, at the second eve, with weary pace, unto 
the lonely mountain’s rugged base. Here the worn traveller, falling 
on her knee, did pray awhile in sacred ecstasy ; and, drawing off 
her sandals from her feet, marched, naked, towards that desolate 
retreat. No answer made she to our cries or groans ; but walking 
midst the prickles and rude stones, a staff in hand, we saw her 
upwards toil ; nor ever did she pause, nor rest the while, save at 
the entry of that savage den. Here, powerless and panting, fell 
she then 

Junia. What was her name, my daughter 1 

Stella. Magdalen.” 

Here the translator must pause — having no inclination to enter 
“the tabernacle” in company with such a spotless high-priest as 
Monsieur Dumas. 

Something “ taberaacular ” may be found in Dumas’s famous 
piece of “Don Juan de Marana.” The poet has laid the scene 
of his play in a vast number of places : in heaven (where we 
have the Virgin Mary, and little angels, in blue, swinging censers 
before her !) — on earth, under the earth, and in a place still 
lower, but not mentionable to ears polite; and the plot, as it 
appears from a dialogue between a good and a bad angel, with 


FRENCH DRAMAS AND MELODRAMAS 241 


which the jilay commences, turns upon a contest between these 
two worthies for the possession of the soul of a member of the 
family of Marana. 

“Don Juan de Marana” not only resembles his namesake, 
celebrated by Mozart and Moli^re, in his peculiar successes 
among the ladies, but possesses further qualities which render 
his character eminently fitting for stage representation : he unites 
the virtues of Lovelace and Lacenaire ; he blas])hemes upon all 
occasions ; he murders, at the slightest provocation, and without 
the most trifling remorse ; he overcomes ladies of rigid virtue, ladies 
of easy virtue, and ladies of no virtue at all ; and the poet, 
inspired by the contemplation of such a character, has depicted 
his hero’s adventures and conversation with wonderful feeling and 
truth. 

The first act of the play contains a half-dozen of murders and 
intrigues; -which would have sufficed humbler genius tlian M. 
Dumas’s, for the completion of, at least, half-a-dozen tragedies. In 
the second act our hero flogs his elder brother, and runs away 
with his sister-in-law ; in the third, he fights a duel with a rival, 
and kills him : whereupon the mistress of his victim takes poison, 
and dies, in great agonies, on the stage. In the fourth act, Don 
Juan, having entered a church for the purpose of carrying off a 
nun, with whom he is in love, is seized by the statue of one of 
the ladies whom he has previously victimised, and made to behold 
the ghosts of all those unfortunate persons whose deaths he has 
caused. 

This is a most edifying spectacle. The ghosts rise solemnly, 
each in a white sheet, preceded by a wax candle ; and, having 
declared their names and qualities, call, in chorus, for vengeance 
upon Don Juan, as thus : — 

“Doti Sandoval {loquitur'). I am Don Sandoval d’Ojedo. I 
played against Don Juan my fortune, the tomb of my fathers, and 
the heart of my mistress ; I lost all. I played against him my life, 
and I lost it. Vengeance against the murderer ! vengeance ! — {The 
candle goes out).’’^ 

The candle goes out^ and an angel descends — a flaming sword in 
his hand — and asks: “Is there no voice in favour of Don Juanl” 
when lo ! Don Juan’s father (like one of those ingenious toys called 
“ Jack-in-the-box ”)• jumps up from his coffin, and demands grace for 
his son. 

When Martha the nun returns, having prepared all things for 
her elopement, she finds Don Juan fainting upon the ground. — “I 


242 


THE PARIS SKETCH BOOK 


am no longer your husband,” says he, upon coming to himself ; “I 
am no longer Don Juan ; I am Brother Juan the Trappist. Sister 
Martha, recollect that you must die ! ” 

This was a most cruel blow upon Sister Martha, who is no less 
a person than an angel, an angel in disguise — the good spirit of the 
house of Marana, who has gone to the length of losing her wings 
and forfeiting her place in heaven, in order to keep company with 
Don Juan on earth, and, if possible, to convert him. Already, in 
her angelic character, she had exhorted him to repentance, but in 
vain ; for, while she stood at one elbow, pouring not merely hints, 
but long sermons, into his ear, at the other elbow stood a bad spirit, 
grinning and sneering at all her pious counsels, and obtaining by 
far the greater share of the Don’s attention. 

In spite, however, of the utter contempt with which Don Juan 
treats her — in spite of his dissolute courses, which must shock her 
virtue, — and his impolite neglect, which must wound her vanity, 
the poor creature (who, from having been accustomed to better 
company, might have been presumed to have had better taste), 
the unfortunate angel feels a certain inclination for the Don, and 
actually flies up to heaven to ask permission to remain with him 
on earth. 

And when the curtain draws up, to the sound of harps, and 
discovers white-robed angels walking in the clouds, we find the angel 
of Marana upon her knees, uttering the following address : — 


Le Bon Ange. 

“ Vierge, k qui le calice k la liqueur amfere 
Fut si souvent offert, 

Mfere, que Ton nomma la douloureuse mere, 

Taut vous avez souffert ! 

Vous, dent les yeux divins sur la terre des hommes 
Out verse plus de pleurs 

Que VOS pieds n’ont depuis, dans le del oii nous sommes, 
Fait eclore de fleurs. 

Vase d’dection, etoile matinale, 

Miroir de purete, 

Vous qui priez pour nous, d'une voix virginale, 

La supreme bonte ; 

A mon tour, aujourd’hui, bienheureuse Marie, 

J e tombe a vos genoux ; 

Daignez done m’ecouter, car e’est vous que je prie, 

Vous qui priez pour nous.” 


FRENCH DRAMAS AND MELODRAMAS 243 
Which may be thus interxjreted : — 

“ 0 Virgin blest ! by whom the bitter draught 
So often has been quaffed, 

That, for thy sorrow, thou art named by us 
The Mother Dolorous ! 

Thou, from whose eyes have fallen more tears of woe, 

Upon the earth below. 

Than ’neath thy footsteps, in this heaven of ours, 

Have risen flowers ! 

0 beaming morning star ! 0 chosen vase ! 

0 mirror of all grace ! 

Who, with thy virgin voice, dost ever pray 
Man’s sins away ; 

Bend down thine ear, and list, 0 blessed saint ! 

Unto my sad complaint ; 

Mother ! to thee I kneel, on thee I call. 

Who hearest all.” 

She proceeds to request that she may be allowed to return to earth, 
and follow the fortunes of Don Juan ; and, as there is one difficulty, 
or, to use her own words, — 

“ Mais, co'mme vous savez qu’aux voutes etemelles, 

Malgre moi, tend mon vol, 

Souffiez sur mon itoile et d6tachez mes axles, 

Pour m’enchatner au sol ; ” 

her request is granted, her star is blown out (0 poetic allusion !), 
and she descends to earth to love, and to go mad, and to die for 
Don Juan ! 

The reader will require no further explanation, in order to 
be satisfied as to the moral of this play : but is it not a very 
bitter satire upon the country, which calls itself the politest nation 
in the world, that the incidents, the indecency, the coarse blasphemy, 
and the vulgar wit of this piece, should find admirers among the 
public, and procure reputation for the author^ Could not the 
Government, which has re-established, in a manner, the theatrical 
censorship, and forbids or alters plays which touch on politics, exert 
the same guardianship over public morals^ The honest English 
reader, who has a faith in his clergyman, and is a regular attendant 
at Sunday worship, will not be a little surprised at the march of 
intellect among our neighbours across the Channel, and at the 
kind of consideration in which they hold their religion. Here is a 
man who seizes upon saints and angels, merely to put sentiments in 


244 


THE PARIS SKETCH BOOK 


their mouths which might suit a nymph of Drury Lane. He shows 
heaven, in order that he may carry debauch into it ; and avails 
himself of the most sacred and sublime parts of our creed as a 
vehicle for a scene-painter’s skill, or an occasion for a handsome 
actress to wear a new dress. 

M. Dumas’s piece of “ Kean ” is not quite so sublime ; it was 
brought out by the author as a satire upon the French critics, who, 
to their credit be it spoken, had generally attacked him, and was 
intended by him, and received by the public, as a faithful por- 
traiture of English manners. As such, it merits special observation 
and praise. In the first act you find a Countess and an Ambassa- 
dress, whose conversation relates purely to the great actor. All the 
ladies in London are in love with him, especially the two present. 
As for the Ambassadress, she prefers him to her husband (a matter 
of course in all French plays), and to a more seducing person still 
— no less a person than the Prince of Wales ! who presently waits 
on the ladies, and joins in their conversation concerning Kean. 
“This man,” says his Royal Highness, “is the very pink of 
fashion. Brummell is nobody when compared to him ; and I 
myself only an insignificant private gentleman. He has a reputa- 
tion among ladies, for which I sigh in vain ; and spends an income 
twice as great as mine.” This admirable historic touch at once 
paints the actor and the Prince ; the estimation in which the one 
was held, and the modest economy for which the other was so 
notorious. 

Then we have Kean, at a place called the Trou de Charbon, the 
“Coal Hole,” where, to the edification of the public, he engages 
in a fisty combat with a notorious boxer. The scene was received 
by the audience with loud exclamations of delight, and commented 
on, by the journals, as a faultless picture of English manners. 
The “ Coal Hole ” being on the banks of the Thames, a nobleman 
— Lord Melbourn ! — has chosen the tavern as a rendezvous for 
a gang of pirates, who are to have their ship in waiting, in order 
to carry off a young lady with whom his Lordship is enamoured. 
It need not be said that Kean arrives at the nick of time, saves 
the innocent Meess Anna, and exposes the infamy of the Peer. 
A violent tirade against noblemen ensues, and Lord Melbourn 
slinks away, disappointed, to meditate revenge. Kean’s triumphs 
continue through all the acts : the Ambassadress falls madly in 
love with him ; the Prince becomes furious at his ill success, 
and the Ambassador dreadfully jealous. They pursue Kean to 
his dressing-room at the theatre ; where, unluckily, the Ambas- 
sadress herself has taken refuge. Dreadful quarrels ensue ; the 
tragedian grows suddenly mad upon the stage, and so cruelly 















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FRENCH DRAMAS AND MELODRAMAS 245 

insults the Prince of Wales that his Royal Highness determines 
to send him to Botany Bay. His sentence, however, is commuted 
to banishment to New York; whither, of course. Miss Anna accom- 
panies him ; rewarding him, previously, with her hand and twenty 
thousand a year ! 

This wonderful performance was gravely received and admired 
by the people of Paris ; the piece was considered to be decidedly 
moral, because the popular candidate was made to triumph through- 
out, and to triumph in the most virtuous manner ; for, according to 
the French code of morals, success among women is at once the 
proof and the reward of virtue. 

The sacred personage introduced in Dumas’s play behind a cloud 
figures bodily in the piece of the “Massacre of the Innocents,” 
represented at Paris last year. She appears under a different name, 
but the costume is exactly that of Carlo Dolce’s Madonna ; and an 
ingenious fable is arranged, the interest of which hangs upon the 
grand Massacre of the Innocents, perpetrated in the fifth act. One 
of the chief characters is “Jean le Prdcurseur,” who threatens 
woe to Herod and his race, and is beheaded by the orders of that 
sovereign. 

In the “ Festin de^ Balthazar,” we are similarly introduced to 
Daniel, and the first scene is laid by the waters of Babylon, where 
a certain number of captive Jews are seated in melancholy postures ; 
a Babylonian officer enters, exclaiming, “ Chantez-nous quelques 
chansons de Jerusalem,” and the request is refused in the language 
of the Psalm. Belshazzar’s Feast is given in a grand tableau, after 
Martin’s picture. That painter, in like manner, furnished scenes 
for the “Deluge.” Vast numbers of schoolboys and children are 
brought to see these pieces ; the lower classes delight in them. 
The famous “ Juif Errant,” at the theatre of the Porte St. Martin, 
was the first of the kind, and its prodigious success, no doubt, 
occasioned the number of imitations which the other theatres have 
produced. 

The taste of such exhibitions, of course, every English person 
will question ; but we must remember the manners of the people 
among whom they are popular ; and, if I may be allowed to hazard 
such an opinion, there is, in every one of these Boulevard mysteries, 
a kind of rude moral. The Boulevard writers don’t pretend to 
“ tabernacles ” and divine gifts, like Madame Sand and Dumas 
before mentioned. If they take a story from the sacred books, they 
garble it without mercy, and take sad liberties with the text ; but 
they do not deal in descriptions of the agreeably wicked, or ask 
pity and admiration for tender-hearted criminals and philanthropic 
murderers, as their betters do. Vice is vice on the Boulevard ; and 


246 


THE PARIS SKETCH BOOK 


it is fine to hear the audience, as a tyrant king roars out cruel 
sentences of death, or a bereaved mother pleads for the life of her 
child, making their remarks on the circumstances of the scene. 
“ Ah, le gredin ! ” growls an indignant countryman. “ Quel 
monstre ! ” says a grisette, in a fury. You see very fat old men 
crying like babies ; and, like babies, sucking enormous sticks of 
barley-sugar. Actors and audience enter warmly into the illusion 
of the piece; and so especially are the former affected, that at 
Franconi’s, where the battles of the Empire are represented, there is 
as regular gradation in the ranks of the mimic army as in the real 
Imperial legions. After a man has served, with credit, for a certain 
number of years in the line, he is promoted to be an officer — an 
acting officer. If he conducts himself well, he may rise to be a 
Colonel, or a General of Division ; if ill, he is degraded to the ranks 
again, or, worst degradation of all, drafted into a regiment of 
Cossacks or Austrians. Cossacks is the lowest depth, however ; 
nay, it is said that the men who perform these Cossack parts re- 
ceive higher wages than the mimic grenadiers and old guard. They 
will not consent to be beaten every night, even in play; to be 
pursued in hundreds by a handful of French ; to fight against their 
beloved Emperor. Surely there is fine hearty virtue in this, and 
pleasant childlike simplicity. 

So that while the drama of Victor Hugo, Dumas, and the en- 
lightened classes is profoundly immoral and absimd, the drama of 
the common people is absurd, if you will, but good and right- 
hearted. I have made notes of one or two of these pieces, which 
all have good feeling and kindness in them, and which turn, as the 
reader will see, upon one or two favourite points of popular morality. 
A drama that obtained a vast success at the Porte St. Martin was 
“La Duchesse de la Vauballi^re.” The Duchess is the daughter 
of a poor farmer, who was carried off in the first place, and then 
married by M. le Due de la Vauballi^re, a terrible rou^, the farmer’s 
landlord, and the intimate friend of Philippe d’Orldans, the Regent 
of France. 

Now the Duke, in running away with the lady, intended 
to dispense altogether with ceremony, and make of Julie any- 
thing but his wife; but Georges, her father, and one Morisseau, 
a notary, discovered him in his dastardly act, and pursued him 
to the very feet of the Regent, who compelled the pair to marry 
and make it up. 

Julie complies ; but though she becomes a Duchess, her heart 
remains faithful to her old flame, Adrian, the doctor ; and she 
declares that, beyond the ceremony, no sort of intimacy shall take 
place between her husband and herself. 


FRENCH DRAMAS AND MELODRAMAS 247 

Then the Duke begins to treat her in tlie most ungentle- 
manlike manner : he abuses her in every possible way ; he intro- 
duces improper characters into her house ; and, finally, becomes 
so disgusted with her, that he determines to make away with her 
altogether. 

For this purpose, he sends forth into the highways and seizes a 
doctor, bidding him, on pain of death, to write a poisonous prescrip- 
tion for Madame la Duchesse. She swallows the potion ; and 0 
horror ! the doctor turns out to be Dr. Adrian ; whose woe may be 
imagined, upon finding that he has been thus committing murder 
on his true love ! 

Let not the reader, however, be alarmed as to the fate of the 
heroine : no heroine of a tragedy ever yet died in the third act ; 
and, accordingly, the Duchess gets up perfectly well again in the 
fourth, through the instrumentality of Morisseau, the good lawyer. 

And now it is that vice begins to be really punished. The 
Duke; who, after killing his wife, thinks it necessary to retreat, 
and take refuge in Spain, is tracked to the borders of that country 
by the virtuous notary, and there receives such a lesson as he will 
never forget to his dying day. 

Morisseau, in the first instance, produces a deed (signed by his 
Holiness the Pope), which annuls the marriage of the Duke de la 
Vauballi^re ; then another deed, by which it is proved that he was 
not the eldest son of old La Vauballi^re, the former Duke; then 
another deed, by which he shows that old La Vauballi^re (who 
seems to have been a disreputable old fellow) was a bigamist, and 
that, in consequence, the present man, styling himself Duke, is 
illegitimate; and, finally, Morisseau brings forward another docu- 
ment, which proves that the regular Duke is no other than Adrian, 
the doctor ! 

Thus it is that love, law, and physic combined triumph over the 
horrid machinations of this star-and-gartered libertine. 

“ Hermann ITvrogne ” is another piece of the same order ; and 
though not very refined, yet possesses considerable merit. As in 
the case of the celebrated Captain Smith of Halifax, who “took to 
drinking ratafia, and thought of poor Miss Bailey,” — a woman and 
the bottle have been the cause of Hermann’s ruin. Deserted by his 
mistress, who has been seduced from him by a base Italian count, 
Hermann, a German artist, gives himself entirely up to liquor and 
revenge : but when he finds that force, and not infidelity, has been 
the cause of his mistress’s ruin, the reader can fancy the indignant 
ferocity with which he pursues the infdme ravisseur. A scene, 
which is really full of spirit, and excellently well acted, here 
ensues ! Hermann proposes to the Count, on the eve of their duel, 


248 


THE PARIS SKETCH BOOK 


that the survivor should hind himself to espouse the unhappy 
Marie ; but the Count declares himself to be already married, and 
the student, finding a duel impossible (for his object was to restore, 
at all events, the honour of Marie), now only thinks of his revenge, 
and murders the Count. Presently, two parties of men enter 
Hermann’s apartment : one is a company of students, who bring 
him the news that he has obtained the prize of painting; the 
other the policemen, who carry him to prison, to suffer the penalty 
of murder. 

I could mention many more plays in which the popular morality 
is similarly expressed. The seducer, or rascal of the piece, is 
always an aristocrat — a wicked count, or licentious marquis, who 
is brought to condign punishment just before the fall of the 
curtain. And too good reason have the French people had to lay 
such crimes to the charge of the aristocracy, who are expiating 
now, on the stage, the wrongs which they did a hundred years 
since. The aristocracy is dead now; but the theatre lives upon 
traditions : and don’t let us be too scornful at such simple legends 
as are handed down by the people from race to race. Vulgar 
prejudice against the great it may be ; but prejudice against the 
great is only a rude expression of sympathy with the poor : long, 
therefore, may fat epiciers blubber over mimic woes, and honest 
proletaires shake their fists, shouting— “ Gredin, sc^lerat, monstre 
de marquis ! ” and such republican cries. 

Remark, too, another development of this same popular feeling 
of dislike against men in power. What a number of plays and 
legends have we (the writer has submitted to the public, in the 
preceding pages, a couple of specimens ; one of French, and the 
other of Polish origin) in which that great and powerful aristocrat, 
the Devil, is made to be miserably tricked, humiliated, and dis- 
appointed ! A play of this class, which, in the midst of all its 
absurdities and claptraps, had much of good in it, was called 
“ Le Maudit des Mers.” Le Maudit is a Dutch captain, who, in 
the midst of a storm, while his crew were on their knees at prayers, 
blasphemed and drank punch ; but what was his astonishment at 
beholding an archangel with a sword all covered with flaming 
resin, who told him that as he, in this hour of danger, w’as too 
daring, or too wicked, to utter a prayer, he never should cease 
roaming the seas until he could find some being who would pray 
to Heaven for him ! 

Once only in a hundred years was the skipper allowed to land 
for this purpose ; and this piece runs through four centuries, in as 
many acts, describing the agonies and unavailing attempts of the 
miserable Dutchman. Willing to go any lengths in order to obtain 


FRENCH DRAMAS AND MELODRAMAS 249 

his prayer, he, in the second act, betrays a Virgin of the Sun to 
a follower of Pizarro ; and, in the third, assassinates the heroic 
William of Nassau ; but ever before the dropping of the curtain, 
the angel and sword make their appearance : — “ Treachery,” says 
the spirit, “ cannot lessen thy punishment crime will not obtain 
thy release ! A la mer ! a la mer ! ” and the poor devil returns 
to the ocean, to be lonely, and tempest-tossed, and sea-sick for a 
hundred years more. 

But his woes are destined to end with the fourth act. Having 
landed in America, where the peasants on the sea-shore, all dressed 
in Italian costumes, are celebrating in a quadrille the victories of 
Washington, he is there lucky enough to find a young girl to pray 
for him. Then the curse is removed, the punishment is over, and 
a celestial vessel, with angels on the decks, and “sweet little 
cherubs” fluttering about the shrouds and the poop, appears to 
receive him. 

This piece was acted at Franconi’s, where, for once, an angel-ship 
was introduced in place of the usual horsemanship. 

One must not forget to mention here, how the English nation is 
satirised by our neighbours ; who have some droll traditions regard- 
ing us. In one of the little Christmas pieces produced at the Palais 
Royal (satires upon the follies of the past twelve months, on which 
all the small theatres exhaust their wit), the celebrated flight of 
Messrs. Green and Monck Mason was parodied, and created a good 
deal of laughter at the expense of John Bull. Two English noble- 
men, Milor Cricri and Milor Hanneton, appear as descending from 
a balloon, and one of them communicates to the public the philoso- 
phical observations which were made in the course of his aerial tour. 

“ On leaving Vauxhall,” says his Lordship, “ we drank a bottle 
of Madeira, as a health to the friends from whom we parted, and 
crunched a few biscuits to support nature during the hours before 
lunch. In two hours we arrived at Canterbury, enveloped in 
clouds; lunch, bottled porter; at Dover, carried several miles in 
a tide of air, bitter cold, cherry-brandy ; crossed over the Channel 
safely, and thought with pity of the poor people who were sickening 
in the steamboats below ; more bottled porter ; over Calais, dinner, 
roast-beef of Old England; near Dunkirk — night falling, lunar 
rainbow, brandy-and-water ; night confoundedly thick ; supper, 
nightcap of rum-punch, and so to bed. The sun broke beautifully 
through the morning mist, as we boiled the kettle and took our 
breakfast over Cologne. In a few more hours we concluded this 
memorable voyage, and landed safely at Weilburg, in good time 
for dinner.” 


250 


THE PARIS SKETCH BOOK 


The joke here is smart enough ; but our honest neighbours make 
many better, when they are quite unconscious of the fun. Let us 
leave plays, for a moment, for poetry, and take an instance of 
French criticism concerning England from the works of a famous 
French exquisite and man of letters. The hero of the poem 
addresses his mistress — 

“ Londres, tu le sais trop, en fait de capitals, 

Est ce que fit le ciel de plus froid et plus p41e, 

C’est la ville du gaz, des marins, du brouillard ; 

On s’y couche a minuit, et Ton s’y levs tard ; 

Ses raouts tant vantes ne sent qu’une boxade, 

Sur ses grands quais jamais echelle ou serenade, 

Mais de volumineux bourgeois pris de porter 
Qui passent sans lever le front a Westminster ; 

Et n’etait sa foret de mats per^ant la brume, 

Sa tour dont k minuit le vieil ceil s’allume, 

Et tes deux yeux, Zerline, illumines bien plus, 

Je dirais que, ma foi, des romans que j’ai lus, 

II n’en est pas un seul plus lourd, plus lethargique 
Que cette nation qu’on nomme Britannique ! ” 

The writer of the above lines (which let any man who can translate) 
is Monsieur Roger de Beauvoir, a gentleman who actually lived 
many months in England, as an attach^ to the embassy of M. de 
Polignac. He places the heroine of his tale in a petit reduit pres 
le Strand, “ with a green and fresh jalousie, and a large blind, let 
down all day ; you fancied you were entering a bath of Asia, as soon 
as you had passed the perfumed threshold of this charming retreat ! ” 
He neait places her — 

“ Dans un square ecarte, morne et couvert de givre, 

Ou se cache un hotel, aux vieux lions de cuivre ; ” 

and the hero of the tale, a young French poet, who is in London, is 
truly imhappy in that village. 

“ Arthur desseche et meurt. Dans la ville de Sterne, 

Bien qu’en voyant le peuple, il a le mal de mer ; 

II n’aime ni le Parc, gai comme une citerne, 

Ni le tir au pigeon, ni le soda-tvater.* 

Liston ne le fait plus sourciller ! II rumine 
Sur les trottoirs du Strand, droit comme un echiquier, 

Centre le peuple anglais, les nbgres, la vermine, 

Et les mille cokneys du peuple boutiquier ; 


* The italics are the author’s own. 


FRENCH DRAMAS AND MELODRAMAS 251 


Centre tons les bas-bleus, centre les patissi^res, 

Les parieurs d’Epsem, le gin, le parlement, 

La quaterly, le rei, la pluie et les libraires, 

Dent il ne teuche plus, helas ! un seu d’argent ! 

Et chaque gentleman lui dit : L’heureux peete ! ” 

“ L’heureux poete ” indeed ! I question if a poet in this wide 
world is so happy as M. de Beauvoir, or has made such wonderful 
discoveries. “The bath of Asia, with green jalousies,” in which 
the lady dwells’; “the old hotel, with copper lions, in a lonely 
square ; ” — were ever such things heard of, or imagined, but by a 
Frenchman^ The sailors, the negroes, the vermin, whom he meets 
in the street — how great and happy are all these discoveries ! 
Liston no longer makes the happy poet frown; and “gin,” 
“cokneys,” and the “quaterly” have not the least effect upon 
him ! And this gentleman has lived many months amongst us ; 
admires Williams Shakspear, the “grave et vieux proph^te,” as 
he calls him, and never, for an instant, doubts that his description 
contains anything absurd ! 

I don’t know whether the great Dumas has passed any time in 
England ; but his plays show a similar intimate knowledge of our 
habits. Thus in “Kean” the stage-manager is made to come 
forward and address the pit, with a speech beginning, “ My Lords 
and Gentlemen ; ” and a company of Englishwomen are introduced 
(at the memorable “ Coal Hole ”), and they all wear pinafores ; as 
if the British female were in the invariable habit of wearing this 
outer garment, or slobbering her gown without it. There was 
another celebrated piece, enacted some years since, upon the subject 
of Queen Caroline, where our late adored sovereign, George, was 
made to play a most despicable part ; and where Signor Bergami 
fought a duel with Lord Londonderry. In the last act of this 
play, the House of Lords was represented, and Sir Brougham made 
an eloquent speech in the Queen’s favour. Presently the shouts 
of the mob were heard without ; from shouting they proceed 
to pelting; and pasteboard brickbats and cabbages came flying 
among the representatives of our hereditary legislature. At this 
unpleasant juncture. Sir Hardinge^ the Secretary-at-War, rises and 
calls in the military; the act ends in a general row, and the 
ignominious fall of Lord Liverpool, laid low by a brickbat from 
the mob ! 

The description of these scenes is, of course, quite incapable of 
conveying any notion of their general effect. You must have the 
solemnity of the actors, as they Meess and Milor one another, and 
the perfect gravity and good faith with wdiich the audience listen to 


252 


THE PARIS SKETCH BOOK 

them. Our stage Frenchman is the old Marquis, with sword, and 
pigtail, and spangled Court coat. The Englishman of the French 
theatre has, invariably, a red wig, and almost always leather gaiters, 
and a long white upper Benjamin ; he remains as he was represented 
in the old caricatures after the Peace, when Vernet designed him 
somewhat after the following fashion — 



And to conclude this catalogue of blunders : in the famous 
piece of the “ Naufrage de la M^duse,” the first act is laid on board 
an English ship-of-war, all the officers of which appeared in light 
blue or green coats (the lamp-light prevented our distinguishing the 
colour accurately) and top-boots ! 


Let us not attempt to deaden the force of this tremendous blow 
by any more remarks. The force of blundering can go no further. 
Would a Chinese playwright or painter have stranger notions about 
the barbarians than our neighbours, who are separated from us but 
by two hours of salt water ^ 


MEDITATIONS AT VERSAILLES 


T he Palace of Versailles has been turned into a bricabrac shop 
of late years, and its time-honoured walls have been covered 
with many thousand yards of the worst pictures that eye 
ever looked on. I don’t know how many leagues of battles and 
sieges the unhappy visitor is now obliged to march through, amidst 
a crowd of chattering Paris cockneys, who are never tired of looking 
at the glories of the Grenadier Fran^ais ; to the chronicling of 
whose deeds this old palace of the old kings is now altogether 
devoted. A whizzing, screaming steam-engine rushes hither from 
Paris, bringing shoals of badauds in its wake. The old coucous are 
all gone, and their place knows them no longer. Smooth asphaltum 
terraces, tawdry lamps, and great hideous Egyptian obelisks, have 
frightened them away from the pleasant station they used to occupy 
under the trees of the Champs Elysdes ; and though the old coucous 
were just the most uncomfortable vehicles that human ingenuity 
ever constructed, one can’t help looking back to the days of their 
existence with a tender regret ; for there was pleasure then in the 
little trip of three leagues : and who ever had pleasure in a railroad 
journey 1 Does any reader of this venture to say that, on such a 
voyage, he ever dared to be pleasant? Do the most hardened 
stokers joke with one another? I don’t believe it. Look into 
every single car of the train, and you will see tliat every single 
face is solemn. They take their seats gravely, and are silent, for 
the most part, during the journey ; they dare not look out of 
window, for fear of being blinded by the smoke that conies whizzing 
by, or of losing their heads in one of the windows of the down 
train ; they ride for miles in utter damp and darkness : through 
awful pipes of brick, that have been run pitilessly through the bowels 
of gentle Mother Earth, the cast-iron Frankenstein of an engine 
gallops on, puffing and screaming. Does any man pretend to say 
that he enjoys the journey ? — he might as well say that he enjoyed 
having his hair cut ; he bears it, but that is all : he will not allow 
the world to laugh at him, for any exhibition of slavish fear ; and 
pretends, therefore, to be at his ease : but he is afraid : nay, ought 


254 


THE PARIS SKETCH BOOK 


to be, under the circumstances. I am sure Hannibal or Napoleon 
would, were they locked suddenly into a car; there kept close 
prisoners for a certain number of hours, and whirled along at this 
dizzy pace. You can’t stop, if you would : — you may die, but you 
can’t stop ; the engine may explode upon the road, and up you go 
along with it ; or, may be a bolter, and take a fancy to go down 
a hill, or into a river ; all this you must bear, for the privilege of 
travelling twenty miles an hour. 

This little journey, then, from Paris to Versailles, that used to 
be so merry of old, has lost its pleasures since the disappearance of 
the coucous ; and I would as lief have for companions the statues 
that lately took a coach from the bridge opposite the Chamber of 
Deputies, and stepped out in the court of Versailles, as the most 
part of the people who now travel on the railroad. The stone 
figures are not a whit more cold and silent than these persons, who 
used to be, in the old coucous, so talkative and merry. The prattling 
grisette and her swain from the Ecole de Droit ; the huge Alsacian 
carabinier, grimly smiling under his sandy moustaches and glittering 
brass helmet ; the jolly nurse, in red calico, who had been to Paris 
to show mamma her darling Lolo, or Auguste ; — what merry 
companions used one to find squeezed into the crazy old vehicles 
that formerly performed the journey ! But the age of horseflesh is 
gone — that of engineers, economists, and calculators has succeeded ; 
and the pleasure of coucoudom is extinguished for ever. Why not 
mourn over it, as Mr. Burke did over his cheap defence of nations 
and unbought grace of life ; that age of chivalry, which he lamented, 
apropos of a trip to Versailles, some half a century back^ 

Without stopping to discuss (as might be done, in rather a neat 
and successful manner) whether the age of chivalry was cheap or 
dear, and whether, in the time of the unbought grace of life, there 
was not more bribery, robbery, villainy, tyranny, and corruption, 
than exists even in our own happy days, — let us make a few moral 
and historical remarks upon the town of Versailles ; where, between 
railroad and coucou, we are surely arrived by this time. 

The town is, certainly, the most moral of towns. You pass 
from the railroad station through a long lonely suburb, with dusty 
rows of stunted trees on either side, and some few miserable beggars, 
idle boys, and ragged old women under them. Behind the trees 
are gaunt mouldy houses ; palaces once, where (in the days of the 
unbought grace of life) the cheap defence of nations gambled, ogled, 
swindled, intrigued ; whence high-born duchesses used to issue, in 
old times, to act as chambermaids to lovely Du Barri ; and mighty 
princes rolled away, in gilt caroches, hot for the honour of lighting 
his Majesty to bed, or of presenting his stockings when he rose, or 


MEDITATIONS AT VERSAILLES 


255 


of holding his napkin when he dined. Tailors, chandlers, tinmen, 
wretched hucksters, and greengrocers are now established in the 
mansions of the old peers ; small children are yelling at the doors, 
with mouths besmeared with bread and treacle ; damp rags are 
hanging out of every one of the windows, steaming in the sun ; 
oyster-shells, cabbage-stalks, broken crockery, old papers, lie bask- 
ing in the same cheerful light. A solitary water-cart goes jingling 
down the wide pavement, and spirts a feeble refreshment over the 
dusty thirsty stones. 

After pacing for some time through such dismal streets, we 
deboucher on the grande ‘place; and before us lies the palace 
dedicated to all the glories of France. In the midst of the great 
lonely plain this famous residence of King Louis looks low and 
mean. — Honoured pile ! Time was when tall musketeers and gilded 
body-guards allowed * none to pass the gate. Fifty years ago, ten 
thousand drunken women from Paris broke through the charm ; 
and now a tattered commissioner will conduct you through it for a 
penny, and lead you up to the sacred entrance of the palace. 

We will not examine all the glories of France, as here they are 
portrayed in pictures and marble : catalogues are written about 
these miles of canvas, representing all the revolutionary battles, 
from Valmy to Waterloo, — all the triumphs of Louis XIV. — all 
the mistresses of his successor — and all the great men who have 
flourished since the French empire began. Military heroes are 
most of these — fierce constables in shining steel, marshals in 
voluminous wigs, and brave grenadiers in bearskin caps ; some 
dozens of whom gained crowns, principalities, dukedoms ; some 
hundreds, plunder and epaulets; some millions, death in African 
sands, or in icy Russian plains, under the guidance, and for the 
good, of that arch-hero, Napoleon. By far the greater part of “ all 
the glories ” of France (as of most other countries) is made up of 
these military men : and a fine satire it is on the cowardice of 
mankind, that they pay such an extraordinary homage to the 
virtue called courage; filling their history-books with tales about 
it, and nothing but it. 

Let them disguise the place, however, as they will, and plaster 
the walls with bad pictures as they please, it will be hard to think 
of any family but one, as one traverses this vast gloomy edifice. It 
has not been humbled to the ground, as a certain palace of Babel 
was of yore ; but it is a monument of fallen pride, not less awful, 
and would afibrd matter for a whole library of sermons. The cheap 
defence of nations expended a thousand millions in the erection of 
this magnificent dwelling-place. Armies were employed, in the 
intervals of their warlike labours, to level hills, or pile them up ; 


256 


THE PARIS SKETCH BOOK 


to turn rivers, and to build aqueducts, and transplant woods, and 
construct smooth terraces, and long canals. A vast garden grew 
up in a wilderness, and a stupendous palace in the garden, and a 
stately city round the palace : the city was peopled with parasites, 
who daily came to do worship before the creator of these wonders — 
the Great King. “ Dieu seul est grand,” said courtly Massillon ; 
but next to him, as the prelate thought, was certainly Louis, his 
vicegerent here upon earth — God’s lieutenant-governor of the world, 
— before whom courtiers used to fall on their knees, and shade their 
eyes, as if the light of his countenance, like the sun, which shone 
supreme in heaven, the type of him, was too dazzling to bear. 

Did ever the sun shine upon such a king before, in such a 
palace'? — or, rather, did such a king ever shine upon the sun”? 
When Majesty came out of his chamber, in the midst of his 
superhuman splendours, viz., in his cinnamon-coloured coat, em- 
broidered with diamonds ; his pyramid of a wig ; * his red-heeled 
shoes, that lifted him four inches from the ground, “that he 
scarcely seemed to touch : ” when he came out, blazing upon the 
dukes and duchesses that waited his rising, — what could the latter 
do but cover their eyes, and wink, and tremble ? And did he not 
himself believe, as he stood there, on his high heels, under his 
ambrosial periwig, that there was something in him more than 
man — something above Fate “? 

This, doubtless, was he fain to believe; and if, on very fine 
days, from his terrace before his gloomy palace of St. Germains, he 
could catch a glimpse, in the distance, of a certain white spire of 
St. Denis, where his race lay buried, he would say to his courtiers, 
with a sublime condescension, “ Gentlemen, you must remember that 
I, too, am mortal.” Surely the lords in waiting could hardly think 
him serious, and vowed that his Majesty always loved a joke. 
However, mortal or not, the sight of that sharp spire wounded 
his Majesty’s eyes ; and is said, by the legend, to have caused the 
building of the Palace of Babel-Versailles. 

In the year 1681, then, the great King, with bag and baggage, 
— with guards, cooks, chamberlains, mistresses, Jesuits, gentlemen, 
lacqueys, Fdnelons, Moli^res, Lauzuns, Bossuets, Villars, Villeroys, 
Louvois, Colberts, — transported himself to his new palace : the old 
one being left for James of England and Jaquette his wife, when 
their time should come. And when the time did come, and James 
sought his brother's kingdom, it is on record that Louis hastened 
to receive and console him, and promised to restore, incontinently, 
those islands from which the canaille had turned him. Between 

* It is fine to think that, in the days of his youth, his Majesty Louis XIV. 
used to powder his wig with gold-dust. 


MEDITATIONS AT VERSAILLES 


257 


brothers such a gift was a trifle ; and the courtiers said to one 
another reverently,* “ Tlie Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou on 
my right hand until I make thine enemies thy footstool.” There 
was no blasphemy in the speech ; on the contrary, it was gravely 
said, by a faithful believing man, who thought it no shame to the 
latter to compare his Majesty with God Almighty. Indeed, the 
books of the time will give one a strong idea how general was this 
Louis-worship. I have just been looking at one, which was written 
by an honest Jesuit and prot^gd of Pfere la Chaise, who dedicates 
a book of medals to the august Infants of France, which does, 
indeed, go almost as far in print. He calls our famous monarch 
“Louis le Grand: — 1, Finvincible; 2, le sage; 3, le conqudrant; 
4, la merveille de son si^cle ; 5, la terreur de ses ennemis ; 6, 1’amour 
de ses peuples ; 7, I’arbitre de la paix et de la guerre ; 8, Tadmira- 
tion de Tunivers ; 9, et digue d’en etre le maitre ; 10, le module 
d’un hdros acheve ; 11, digne de Fimmortalit^, et de la vdndration 
de tous les slides ! ” 

A pretty Jesuit declaration, truly, and a good honest judgment 
upon the great King ! In thirty years more — 1. The invincible 
had been beaten a vast number of times. 2. The sage was the 
puppet of an artful old woman, who was the puppet of more 
artful priests. 3. The conqueror had quite forgotten his early 
knack of conquering. 5. The terror of his enemies (for 4, the 
marvel of his age, we pretermit, it being a loose term, that may 
apply to any person or thing) was now terrified by his enemies in 
turn. 6. The love of his people was as heartily detested by them 
as scarcely any other monarch, not even his great-grandson, has 
been, before or since. 7. The arbiter of peace and war was fain to 
send superb ambassadors to kick their heels in Dutch shopkeepers’ 
antechambers. 8, is again a general term. 9. The man fit to be 
master of the universe, was scarcely master of his own kingdom. 
10. The finished hero was all but finished, in a very commonplace 
and vulgar way. And 11. The man worthy of immortality was 
just at the point of death, witliout a friend to soothe or deplore 
him ; only withered old Main tenon to utter prayers at his becfside, 
and croaking Jesuits to prepare him,t with Heaven knows what 
wretched tricks and mummeries, for his appearance in that Great 
Republic that lies on the other side of the grave. In the course 
of his fourscore splendid miserable years, he never had but one friend, 
and he ruined and left her. Poor La Valli^re, what a sad tale is 

* I think it is in the amusing Memoirs of Madame de Crequi” (a forgery, 
but a work remarkable for its learning and accuracy) that the above anecdote 
is related. 

f They made a Jesuit of him on his deathbed. 


R 


258 


THE PARIS SKETCH BOOK 


yours ! “ Look at this Oalerie des Glaces,” cried Monsieur Vatout, 

staggering with surprise at the appearance of the room, two hundred 
and forty-two feet long, and forty high. “ Here it was that Louis 
displayed all the grandeur of Royalty ; and such was the splendour 
of his Court, and the luxury of the times, that this immense room 
could hardly contain the crowd of courtiers that pressed around 
the monarch.” Wonderful ! wonderful ! Eight thousand four 
hundred and sixty square feet of courtiers ! Give a square yard 
to each, and you have a matter of three thousand of them. Think 
of three thousand courtiers per day, and all the chopping and 
changing of them for near forty years : some of them dying ; some 
getting their wishes, and retiring to their provinces to enjoy their 
plunder ; some disgraced, and going home to pine away out of the 
light of the sun ; * new ones i^erpetually arriving, — pushing, squeez- 
ing, for their place, in the crowded Galerie des Glaces. A quarter of 
a million -of noble countenances, at the very least, must those glasses 
have reflected. Rouge, diamonds, ribands, patches, upon the faces 
of smiling ladies ; towering periwigs, sleek shaven crowns, tufted 
moustaches, scars, and grizzled whiskers, worn by ministers, priests, 
dandies, and grim old commanders. — So many faces, 0 ye gods ! 
and every one of them lies ! So many tongues, vowing devotion 
and respectful love to the great King in his six-inch wig ; and only 
poor La Yallifere’s amongst them all which had a word of truth for 
the dull ears of Louis of Bourbon. 

“ Quand j’aurai de la peine aux Carmelites,” says unhappy 
Louise, about to retire from these magnificent courtiers and their 
grand Galerie des Glaces, “je me souviendrai de ce que ces gens-lh 
m’ont fait souffrir ! ” — A troop of Bossuets inveighing against the 
vanities of Courts could not preach such an affecting sermon. 
AVhat years of anguish and wrong had the poor thing suffered, 
before these sad words came from her gentle lips ! How these 
courtiers have bowed and flattered, kissed the ground on which 
she trod, fought to have the honour of riding by her carriage, 
written sonnets, and called her goddess : who in the days of her 
prosperity was kind and beneficent, gentle and compassionate to 
all ; then (on a certain day, when it is whispered that his Majesty 
hath cast the eyes of his gracious affection upon another) behold 
three thousand courtiers are at the feet of the new divinity. — “ 0 
divine Athenais ! what blockheads have we been to worship any 
but you. — That a goddess 1 — a pretty goddess forsooth ; — a witch, 
rather, who, for a while, kept our gracious monarch blind ! Look 

* Saint Simon’s account of Lauzun, in disgrace, is admirably facetious and 
pathetic ; Lauzun’s regrets are as monstrous as those of Ualeigh when deprived 
of the sight of his adorable queen and mistress, Elizabeth. 


MEDITATIONS AT VERSAILLES 


259 

at her : the woman limps as she walks ; and, by sacred Venus, 
her nioutli stretches almost to her diamond earrings ! ” * The 
same tale may be told of many more deserted mistresses ; and fair 
Athenais de Montespan was to hear it of herself one day. Mean- 
time, while La Valli^re’s heart is breaking, the model of a finished 
hero is yawning; as, on such paltry occasions, a finished hero 
should. Let her heart break : a plague upon her tears and 
repentance ; what right has she to repent % Away with her to 
her convent ! She goes, and the finished hero never sheds a 
tear. What a noble pitch of stoicism to have reached ! Our Louis 
was so great, that the little woes of mean people were beyond 
him : his friends died, his mistresses left him ; his children, one 
by one, were cut off before his eyes, and great Louis is not 
moved in the slightest degree ! As how, indeed, should a god be 
moved % 

I have often liked to think about this strange character in 
the world, who moved in it, bearing about a full belief in his own 
infallibility ; teaching his generals the art of war, his ministers the 
science of government, his wits taste, his courtiers dress ; ordering 
deserts to become gardens, turning villages into palaces at a breath ; 
and indeed the august figure of tlie man, as he towers upon his 
throne, cannot fail to inspire one with respect and awe : — how 
grand those flowing locks appear; how' awful that sceptre; how 
magnificent those flowing robes ! In Louis, surely, if in any one, 
the majesty of kinghood is represented. 

But a king is not every inch a king, for all the poet may say ; 
and it is curious to see how much ‘precise majesty there is in that 
majestic figure of Ludovicus Rex. In the plate opposite, we have 
endeavoured to make the exact calculation. The idea of kingly 
dignity is equally strong in tlic two outer figures ; and you see, at 
once, that majesty is made out of the wig, the high-heeled shoes, 
and cloak, all fleurs-de-lis bespangled. As for the little lean, 
shrivelled, paunchy old man, of five feet two, in a jacket and 
breeches, there is no majesty in him at any rate ; and yet he has 
just stepped out of that very suit of clothes. Put the wig and 
slioes on him, and he is six feet high ; — the other fripperies, and he 
stands before you majestic, imperial, and heroic ! Thus do barbers 
and cobblers make the gods that we worship : for do we not all 
worship him? Yes; though we all know him to be stupid, heart- 
less, short, of doubtful personal courage, worship and admire him 
we must ; and have set up, in our hearts, a grand image of him, 

* A pair of diamond earrings, given by the King to La Valli^re, caused 
much scandal ; and some lampoons are extant, which impugn the taste of 
Louis XIV. for loving a lady with such an enormous mouth. 


260 THE PARIS SKETCH BOOK 

endowed with wit, magnanimity, valour, and enormous heroical 
stature. 

And what magnanimous acts are attributed to him ! or, rather, 
how differently do we view the actions of heroes and common men, 
and find that the same tiling shall be a wonderful virtue in the 
former, which, in the latter, is only an ordinary act of duty. Look 
at yonder window of the King’s chamber ; — one morning a Royal 
cane was seen whirling out of it, and plumped among the courtiers 
and guard of honour below. King Louis had absolutely, and with 
his own hand, flung his own cane out of the window, “ because,” 
said he, “ I won’t demean myself by striking a gentleman ! ” 0 

miracle of magnanimity ! Lauzun was not caned, because he be- 
sought Majesty to keep his promise, — only imprisoned for ten years 
in Pignerol, along with banished Fouquet ; — and a pretty story is 
Fouquet’s too. 

Out of the window the King’s august head was one day thrust, 
when old Condd was painfully toiling up the steps of the court 
below. Don’t hurry yourself, my cousin,” cries Magnanimity ; 
“one who has to carry so many laurels cannot walk fast.” At 
which all the courtiers, lacqueys, mistresses, chamberlains, Jesuits, 
and scullions, clasp their hands and burst into tears. Men are 
affected by the tale to this very day. For a century and three- 
quarters have not all the books that speak of Versailles, or Louis 
Quatorze, told the story 1 — “Don’t hurry yourself, my cousin!” 
0 admirable King and Christian 1 what a pitch of condescension 
is here, that the greatest King of all the world should go for to say 
anything so kind, and really tell a tottering old gentleman, worn 
out with gout, age, and wounds, not to walk too fast ! 

What a proper fund of slavishness is there in the composition of 
mankind, that histories like these should be found to interest and 
awe them. Till the world’s end, most likely, this story will have 
its place in the history-books ; and unborn generations will read it, 
and tenderly be moved by it. I am sure that Magnanimity went to 
bed that night pleased and happy, intimately convinced that he had 
done an action of sublime virtue, and had easy slumbers and sweet 
dreams, — especially if he had taken a light supper, and not too 
vehemently attacked his en cas de nuit. 

That famous adventure, in which the en cas de nuit was brought 
into use, for the sake of one Poquelin, alias Moli^re : — how often has 
it been described and admired ? This Poquelin, though King’s valet- 
de-chambre, was by profession a vagrant ; and as such looked coldly 
on by the great lords of the palace, who refused to eat with him. 
Majesty hearing of this, ordered his en cas de nuit to be placed on 
the table, and positively cut ofl‘ a wing with his own knife and fork 


AN HISTORICAL STUDY. 








MEDITATIONS AT VERSAILLES 


261 


for Poquelin’s use. 0 thrice happy Jean Baptiste ! The King has 
actually sat down with him cheek by jowl, had tlie liver-wing of a 
fowl, and given Molike the gizzard ; put his imperial legs under the 
same mahogany (sub iisdem trabihus). A man, after such an honour, 
can look for little else in this world : he has tasted the utmost con- 
ceivable earthly happiness, and has nothing to do now but to fold 
his arms, look up to heaven, and sing “ Nunc dimittis” and die. 

Do not let us abuse poor old Louis on account of this monstrous 
pride ; but only lay it to the charge of the fools who believed and 
worshipped it. If, honest man, he believed himself to be almost a 
god, it was only because thousands of people had told him so — 
people only half liars, too ; who did, in the depths of their slavish 
respect, admire the man almost as much as they said they did. If, 
when he appeared in his five-hundred-million coat, as he is said to 
have done, before the Siamese Ambassadors, the courtiers began to 
shade their eyes and long for parasols, as if this Bourbonic sun was 
too hot for them ; indeed, it is no wonder that he should believe that 
there was something dazzling about his person ; he had half a million 
of eager testimonies to this idea. Who was to tell liim the truth 1 — 
Only in the last years of his life did trembling courtiers dare whisper 
to him, after much circumlocution, that a certain battle had been 
fought at a place called Blenheim, and that Eugene and Marlborough 
had stopped his long career of triumphs. 

“ On n’est plus heureux h, notre age,” says the old man, to one 
of his old generals, welcoming Tallard after his defeat ; and he rewards 
him with honours, as if he had come from a victory. There is, if you 
will, something magnanimous in this welcome to his conquered general, 
this stout protest against Fate. Disaster succeeds disaster ; armies 
after armies march out to meet fiery Eugene and that dogged fatal 
Englishman, and disappear in the smoke of the enemies’ cannon. 
Even at Versailles you may almost hear it roaring at last ; but when 
courtiers, who have forgotten their god, now talk of quitting this 
grand temple of his, old Louis plucks up heart and will never hear 
of surrender. All the gold and silver at Versailles he melts, to find 
bread for his armies : all the jewels on his five-hundred-million coat 
he pawns resolutely ; and, bidding Villars go and make the last 
struggle but one, promises, if his general is defeated, to place himself 
at the head of his nobles, and die King of France. Indeed, after a 
man, for sixty years, has been performing the part of a hero, some 
of the real heroic stuff must have entered into his composition, 
whether he would or not. When the great Elliston was enacting the 
part of King George the Fourth, in the play of “ The Coronation,” 
at Drury Lane, the galleries applauded very loudly his suavity and 
majestic demeanour, at which Elliston, inflamed by the popular 


262 


THE PARIS SKETCH BOOK 


loyalty (and by some fermented liquor in which, it is said, he was in 
the habit of indulging), burst into tears, and, spreading out his arms, 
exclaimed : “ Bless ye, bless ye, my people ! ” Don’t let us laugh 
at his Ellistonian majesty, nor at the people who clapped hands and 
yelled “ bravo ! ” in praise of him. The tipsy old manager did really 
feel that he was a hero at that moment ; and the people, wild witli 
delight and attachment for a magnificent coat and breeches, surely 
were uttering the true sentiments of loyalty : which consists in 
reverencing these and other articles of costume. In this fifth act, 
then, of his long Royal drama, old Louis performed his part ex- 
cellently ; and when the curtain drops upon him, he lies, dressed 
majestically, in a becoming kingly attitude, as a king should. 

The King his successor has not left, at Versailles, half so much 
occasion for moralising : perhaps the neighbouring Parc aux Cerfs 
would afford better illustrations of his reign. The life of his great 
grandsire, the Grand Llama of France, seems to have frightened 
Louis the Well-beloved ; who understood that loneliness is one of 
the necessary conditions of divinity, and being of a jovial com- 
panionable turn, aspired not beyond manhood. Only in the matter 
of ladies did he surpass his predecessor, as Solomon did David. 
War he eschewed, as his grandfather bade him ; and his simple 
taste found little in this world to enjoy beyond the mulling of 
chocolate and the frying of pancakes. Look, here is the room 
called Laboratoire du Roi, where, with his own hands, he made 
his mistress’s breakfast : — here is the little door through which, 
from her apartments in the upper storey, the chaste Du Barri came 
stealing down to the arms of the weary, feeble, gloomy old man. 
But of women he was tired long since, and even pancake-frying 
had palled upon him. What had he to do, after forty years of 
reign; — after having exhausted everything'? Every pleasure that 
Dubois could invent for his hot youth, or cunning Lebcl could 
minister to his old age, was flat and stale ; used up to the very 
dregs : every shilling in the national purse liad been squeezed out, 
by Pompadour and Du Barri and such brilliant ministers of state. 
He had found out the vanity of pleasure, as his ancestor had dis- 
covered the vanity of glory : indeed it was high time that he should 
die. And die he did ; and round his tomb, as round that of his 
grandfather before him, the starving people sang a dreadful chorus 
of curses, which were the only epitaphs for good or for evil that 
were raised to his memory. 

As for the courtiers — the knights and nobles, the unbought 
gi’ace of life — they, of course, forgot him in one minute after liis 
death, as the way is. When the King dies, the officer appointed 
opens his chamber window, and calling out into the court below. 


MEDITATIONS AT VERSAILLES 263 

Le Roi est mart, brecaks his cane, takes another and waves it, ex- 
claiming Vive le Roi ! Straiglitway all the loyal nobles begin 
yelling Vive le Roi ! and the officer goes round solemnly and sets 
yonder great clock in the Conr de Marbre to the hour of the King’s 
death. This old Louis had solemnly ordained ; but the Versailles 
clock was only set twice : there was no shouting of Vive le Roi 
when the successor of Louis XV. mounted to heaven to join his 
sainted family. 

Strange stories of the deaths of kings have always been very 
recreating and profitable to us : what a fine one is that of the death 
of Louis XV., as Madame Cam pan tells it. One night the gracious 
monarch came back ill from Trianon ; the disease turned out to be 
the small-pox ; so violent that ten people of those who had to enter 
his chamber caught the infection and died. The whole Court flies 
from him ; only poor old fat Mesdames the King’s daughters persist 
in remaining at his bedside, and praying for his soul’s welfare. 

On the 10th May 1774, the whole Court had assembled at 
the chateau ; the (Eil de Boeuf was full. The Dauphin had deter- 
mined to depart as soon as the King had breathed his last. And 
it was agreed by the people of the stables, with those who w'atched 
in the King’s room, that a lighted candle should be placed in a 
window, and should be extinguished as soon as he had ceased to 
live. The candle was put out. At that signal, guards, pages, and 
squires mounted on horseback, and everything was made ready 
for departure. The Dauphin was with the Dauphiness, waiting 
together for the news of the King’s demise. An immense noise^ 
as if of tkunde)', teas heard in the next room ; it was the crowd 
of courtiers, who were deserting the dead King’s apartment in 
order to pay their court to the new power of Louis XVI. Madame 
de Noailles entered, and was the first to salute the Queen by her 
title of Queen of France, and begged their Majesties to quit their 
apartments to receive the princes and great lords of the Court 
desirous to pay their homage to the new sovereigns. Leaning on 
her husband’s arm, a handkerchief to her eyes, in the most touching 
attitude, Marie Antoinette received these first visits. On quitting 
the chamber where the dead King lay, the Due de Villequier bade 
M. Anderville, first surgeon of the King, to open and embalm the 
body : it would have been certain death to the surgeon. “ I am 
ready, sir,” says he ; “ but whilst I am operating, you must hold 
the head of the corpse : your charge demands it.” The Duke went 
away without a word, and the body was neither opened nor em- 
balmed. A few humble domestics and poor workmen watched by 
the remains, and performed the last offices to their master. The 
surgeons ordered spirits of wine to be poured into the coffin. 


264 . 


THE PARIS SKETCH BOOK 


They huddled the King’s body into a postchaise ; and in this 
deplorable equipage, with an escort of about forty men, Louis the 
Well-beloved was carried, in the dead of niglit, from Versailles to 
Saint-Denis, and then thrown into the tomb of the kings of France ! 

If any man is curious, and can get permission, he may mount 
to the roof of the palace, and see where Louis XVI. used royally to 
amuse himself, by gazing upon the doings of all the townspeople 
below with a telescope. Behold that balcony where, one morning, 
he, his Queen, and the little Dauphin stood, with Cromwell 
Grandison Lafayette by their side, who kissed her Majesty’s 
hand, and protected her; and then, lovingly surrounded by his 
people, the King got into a coach and came to Paris : nor did his 
Majesty ride much in coaches after that. 

There is a portrait of the King, in the upper galleries, clothed 
in red and gold, riding a fat horse, brandishing a sword, on which 
the word “Justice” is inscribed, and looking remarkably stupid 
and uncomfortable. You see that the horse will throw him at the 
very first fling ; and as for the sword, it never was made for such 
hands as his, which were good at holding a corkscrew or a carving- 
knife, but not clever at the management of weapons of war. Let 
those pity him who will : call him saint and martyr if you please ; 
but a martyr to what principle was he ? Did he frankly support 
either party in his kingdom, or cheat and tamper with both 1 He 
might have escaped ; but he must have his supper : and so his 
family was butchered and his kingdom lost, and he had his bottle 
of Burgundy in comfort at Varennes. A single charge upon the 
fatal tenth of August, and the monarchy might have been his once 
more ; but he is so tender-hearted, that he lets his friends be 
murdered before his eyes almost : or, at least, when he has turned 
his back upon his duty and his kingdom, and has skulked for 
safety into the reporters’ box at the National Assembly. There 
were hundreds of brave men who died that day, and were martyrs, 
if you will : poor neglected tenth-rate courtiers, for the most part, 
who had forgotten old slights and disappointments, and left their 
places of safety to come and die, if need were, sharing in the supreme 
hour of the monarchy. Monarchy was a great deal too humane to 
fight along with these, and so left them to the pikes of Santerre 
and the mercy of the men of the Sections. But we are wandering a 
good ten miles from Versailles, and from the deeds which Louis XVI. 
performed there. 

He is said to have been such a smart journeyman blacksmith, 
that he might, if Fate had not perversely placed a crown on his 
head, have earned a couple of louis every week by the making of 
locks and keys. Those who will, may see the workshop where he 


MEDITATIONS AT VERSAILLES 


265 


employed many useful hours ; Madame Elizabeth was at prayers 
meanwhile ; the Queen was making pleasant parties with her ladies ; 
Monsieur the Count d’Artois was learning to dance on the tight- 
rope; and Monsieur de Provence was cultivating V Eloquence du 
billet and studying his favourite Horace. It is said that each 
member of the august family succeeded remarkably well in his or 
her pursuits : big Monsieur’s little notes are still cited. At a 
minuet or sillabub, poor Antoinette was unrivalled; and Charles, 
on the tight-rope, was so graceful and so gentil, that Madame Saqui 
might envy him. The time only was out of joint. 0 cursed spite, 
that ever such harmless creatures as these were bidden to right it ! 

A walk to the Little Trianon is both pleasing and moral : no 
doubt the reader has seen the pretty fantastical gardens which 
environ it ; the groves and temples ; the streams and caverns 
(whither, as the guide tells you, during the heat of summer, it was 
the custom of Marie Antoinette to retire, with her favourite, 
Madame de Lamballe) : the lake and Swiss village are pretty little 
toys, moreover ; and the cicerone of the place does not fail to point 
out the different cottages which surround the piece of water, and 
tell the names of the Royal masqueraders who inhabited each. In 
the long cottage close upon the lake dwelt the Seigneur du Village, 
no less a personage than Louis XV. ; Louis XVI., the Dauphin, 
was the Bailli ; near his cottage is that of Monseigneur the Count 
d’Artois, who was the Miller ; opposite lived the Prince de Condd, 
who enacted the part of Gamekeeper (or, indeed, any other role, for 
it does not signify much) ; near him was the Prince de Rohan, who 
was the Aumonier; and yonder is the pretty little dairy, which 
was under the charge of the fair Marie Antoinette herself. 

I forget whether Monsieur the fat Count of Provence took any 
share of this Royal masquerading; but look at the names of the 
other six actors of the comedy, and it will be hard to find any 
person for whom Fate had such dreadful visitations in store. 
Fancy the party, in the days of their prosperity, here gathered at 
Trianon, and seated under the tall poplars by the lake, discoursing 
familiarly together : suppose, of a sudden, some conjuring Cagliostro 
of the time is introduced among them, and foretells to them the 
woes that are about to come. “You, Monsieur I’Aumonier, the 
descendant of a long line of princes, the passionate admirer of that 
fair Queen who sits by your side, shall be the cause of her ruin and 
your own,* and shall die in disgrace and exile. You, son of the 
bondds, shall live long enough to see your Royal race overthrown, 
and shall die by the hands of a hangman. f You, oldest son of 

* In the diamond-necklace affair. 

t He was found hanging in his own bedroom. 


266 


THE PARIS SKETCH BOOK 


St. Louis, shall perish by the executioner’s axe ; that beautiful 
head, 0 Antoinette, the same ruthless blade shall sever.” “ They 
shall kill me first,” says Lamballe, at the Queen’s side. “ Yes, 
truly,” replies the soothsayer, “ for Fate prescribes ruin for your 
mistress and all who love her.” * “ And,” cries Monsieur d’ Artois, 

“ do I not love my sister too '? I pray you not to omit me in your 
prophecies.” 

To whom Monsieur Cagliostro says scornfully, “You may look 
forward to fifty years of life, after most of these are laid in the 
grave. You shall be a king, but not die one; and shall leave 
the crown only ; not the worthless head that shall wear it. Thrice 
shall you go into exile ; you shall fly from the people, first, who 
would have no more of you and your race ; and you shall return 
home over half-a-million of human corpses, that have been made 
for the sake of you, and of a tyrant as great as the greatest of your 
family. Again driven away, your bitterest enemy shall bring you 
back. But the strong limbs of France are not to be chained by 
such a paltry yoke as you can put on her : you shall be a tyrant, 
but in will only, and shall have a sceptre, but to see it robbed from 
your hand.” 

“ And pray. Sir Conjurer, who shall be the robber 1 ” asked 
Monsieur the Count d’ Artois. 

This I cannot say, for here my dream ended. The fact is, 
I had fallen asleep on one of the stone benches in the Avenue de 
Paris, and at this instant was awakened by a whirling of carriages 
and a great clattering of national guards, lancers and outriders, 
in red. His Majesty Louis Philippe was going to pay a visit 
to the palace ; which contains several pictures of his own glorious 
actions, and which has been dedicated, by him, to All the Glories 
of France. 

* Among the many lovers that rumour gave to the Queen, poor Fersen is 
the most remarkable. He seems to have entertained for her a high and perfectly 
pure devotion. He was the chief agent in the luckless escape to Varennes ; was 
lurking in Paris during the time of her captivity ; and was concerned in the 
many fruitless plots that were mode for her rescue. Fersen lived to be an old 
man, but died a dreadful and violent death. He was dragged from his carriage 
by the mob, in Stockholm, and murdered by them. 


THE 


IRISH SKETCH BOOK 


OF 1842 







TO 

CHARLES LEVER, Esq. 

OF TEMPLEOGUE HOUSE, NEAR DUBLIN 


M y dear lever, — H arry Lorrequer needs no compli- 
menting in a dedication ; and I would not venture to in- 
scribe this volume to the Editor of the “Dublin University 
Magazine,” who, I fear, must disapprove of a great deal which it 
contains. 

But allow me to dedicate my little book to a good Irishman 
(the hearty charity of whose visionary redcoats, some substantial 
personages in black might imitate to advantage), and to a friend 
from whom I have received a hundred acts of kindness and cordial 
hospitality. 

Laying aside for a moment the travelling title of Mr. Titmarsh, 
let me acknowledge these favours in my own name, and subscribe 
myself, my dear Lever, 

Most sincerely and gratefully yours, 

W. M. THACKERAY. 


London : April 27, 1843. 





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THE 


iniSII SKETCH BOOK 


CHAPTER I 

A SUMMER DAY IN DUBLIN, OR THERE AND THEREABOUTS 

T he coach that brings the passenger by wood and mountain, 
by brawling waterfall and gloomy plain, by the lonely lake 
of Festiniog and across the swinging world’s wonder of a 
Menai Bridge, through dismal Anglesea to dismal Holyhead — the 
Birmingham mail, — manages matters so cleverly, that after ten 
hours’ ride the traveller is thrust incontinently on board the packet, 
and the steward says there’s no use in providing dinner on board 
because the passage is so short. 

That is true : but why not give us half-an-hour on shore 1 Ten 
hours spent on a coach-box render the dinner question one of ex- 
treme importance ; and as the packet reaches Kingstown at midnight, 
when all the world is asleep, the inn-larders locked up, and the cook 
in bed ; and as the mail is not landed until five in the morning (at 
which hour the passengers are considerately awakened by a great 
stamping and shouting overhead), might not “Lord Lowther ” give 
us one little half-hour'? Even the steward agreed that it was a 
useless and atrocious tyranny ; and, indeed, after a little demur, 
produced a half-dozen of fried eggs, a^ feeble makeshift for a 
dinner. 

Our passage across from the Head was made in a rain so pouring 
and steady, that sea and coast were entirely hidden from us, and 
one could see very little beyond the glowing tip of the cigar which 
remained alight nobly in spite of the weather. When the gallant 
exertions of that fiery spirit were over for ever, and burning bravely 
to the end it had breathed its last in doing its master service, all 
became black and cheerless around ; the passengers had dropped off 


272 


THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK 


one by one, preferring to be dry and ill below rather than wet and 
squeamish above : even the mate, with his gold-laced cap (who is so 
astonishingly like Mr, Charles Dickens that he might pass for that 
gentleman) — even the mate said he would go to his cabin and turn 
in. So there remained nothing for it but to do as all the world had 
done. 

Hence it was impossible to institute the comparison between the 
Bay of Naples and that of Dublin (the Bee of Neeples the former is 
sometimes called in this country), where I have heard the likeness 
asserted in a great number of societies and conversations. But how 
could one see the Bay of Dublin in the dark ? and how, supposing 
one could see it, should a person behave avIio has never seen the 
Bay of Naples'? It is but to take the similarity for granted, and 
remain in bed till morning. 

When everybody was awakened at five o’clock by the noise 
made upon the removal of the mail-bags, there was heard a cheerless 
dribbling and pattering overhead, which led one to wait still further 
until the rain should cease. At length the steward said the last 
boat was going ashore, and receiving half-a-crown for his own ser- 
vices (the regidar tariff), intimated likewise that it was the custom 
for gentlemen to compliment the stewardess with a shilling, which 
ceremony was also complied with. No doubt she is an amiable 
woman, and deserves any sum of money. As for inquiring whether 
she merited it or not in this instance, that surely is quite unfair. 
A traveller who stops to impiire the deserts of every individual 
claimant of a shilling on his road, had best stay quiet at home. If 
we only got what we deserved , — Heaven save us ! — many of us 
might whistle for a dinner. 

A long pier, with a steamer or two at hand, and a few small 
vessels lying on either side of the jetty ; a town irregularly built, 
with many handsome terraces, some churches, and showy-looking 
hotels ; a few people straggling on the beach ; two or three cars at 
the railroad station, which runs along the shore as far as Dublin ; 
the sea stretching interminably eastward ; to the north the Hill of 
Howth, lying grey behind the mist ; and, directly under his feet, 
upon the wet, black, shining, slippery deck, an agreeable reflection 
of his own legs, disappearing seemingly in the direction of the cabin 
from which he issues : are the sights which a traveller may remark 
on coming on deck at Kingstown pier on a wet morning — let us say 
on an average morning; for according to the statement of well- 
informed natives, the Irish day is more often rainy than otherwise. 
A hideous obelisk, stuck upon four fat balls, and surmounted with a 
crown on a cushion (the latter were no bad emblems perhaps of the 
monarch in whose honour they were raised), commemorates the 


APPEARANCE OF KINGSTOWN 


273 


sacred spot at which George IV. quitted Ireland. You are landed 
here from the steamer ; and a carman, who is dawdling in the 
neighbourhood, with a straAV in his mouth, comes leisurely up to 
ask whether you will go to Dublin % Is it natural indolence, or the 
effect of despair because of the neighbouring railroad, which renders 
him so indifferent'? — He does not even take tlie straw out of his 
mouth as he proposes the question — he seems quite careless as to 
the answer. 

He said he would take me to Dublin “ in three quarthers,” as 
soon as we began a parley. As to the fare, he would not hear of 
it — he said he would leave it to my honour ; he would take me for 
nothing. Was it possible to refuse such a genteel offer 1 The times 
are very much changed since those described by the hicetious Jack 
Hinton, when the carmen tossed up for the passenger, and those 
who won him took him ; for the remaining cars on the stand did 
not seem to take the least interest in the bargain, or to offer to 
overdrive or underbid their comrade in any way. 

Before that day, so memorable for joy and sorrow, for rapture 
at receiving its monarch and tearful grief at losing him, when 
George IV. came and left the maritime resort of the citizens of 
Dublin, it bore a less genteel name than that which it owns at 
present, and was called Dunleary. After that glorious event Dun- 
leary disdained to be Dunleary any longer, and became Kingstown 
henceforward and for ever. Numerous terraces and pleasure-houses 
have been built in the place — they stretch row after row along the 
banks of the sea, and rise one above another on the hill. The rents 
of these houses are said to be very high ; the Dublin citizens crowd 
into them in summery and a great source of pleasure and comfort 
must it be to them to have the fresh sea-breezes and prospects so 
near to the metropolis. 

The better sort of houses are handsome and spacious ; but the 
fashionable quarter is yet in an unfinished state, for enterprising 
architects are always beginning new roads, rows and terraces : nor 
are those already built by any means complete. Beside the aristo- 
cratic part of the town is a commercial one, and nearer to Dublin 
stretch lines of low cottages which have not a Kingstown look at 
all, but are evidently of the Dunleary period. It is quite curious 
to see in the streets where the shops are, how often the painter of 
the signboards begins with big letters, and ends, for want of space, 
with small; and the Englishman accustomed to the thriving neat- 
ness and regularity which cliaracterise towns great and small in his 
own country, can’t fail to notice the difference here. The houses 
have a battered rakish look, and seem going to ruin before their 
time. As seamen of all nations come hither who have made no vow 


274 


THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK 


of temperance, tliere are plenty of liquor-shops still, and shabby 
cigar-shops, and shabby milliners’ and tailors’ with fly-blown prints 
of old fashions. The bakers and apothecaries make a great brag of 
their calling, and you see medical hall, or public bakery, bally- 
RAGGET FLOUR-STORE (or whatever the name may be) pompously 
inscribed over very humble tenements. Some comfortable grocers’ 
and butchers’ shops, and numbers of shabby sauntering people, the 
younger part of whom are barelegged and bareheaded, make up the 
rest of the picture which the stranger sees as his car goes jingling 
through the street. 

After the town come the suburbs of pleasure-houses ; low one- 
storeyed cottages for the most part : some neat and fresh ; some 
that have passed away from the genteel state altogether, and exhibit 
downright poverty; some in a state of transition, with broken 
windows and pretty romantic names upon tumbledown gates. Who 
lives in them 1 One fancies that the chairs and tables inside are 
broken, that the teapot on the breakfast-table has no spout, and 
the table-cloth is ragged and sloppy; that the lady of the house 
is in dubious curl-papers; and the gentleman, with an imperial to 
his chin, wears a flaring dressing-gown all ragged at the elbows. 

To be sure, a traveller who in ten minutes can see not only the 
outsides of houses, but the interiors of the same, must have remark- 
ably keen sight ; and it is early yet to speculate. It is clear, how- 
ever, that these are pleasure-houses for a certain class ; and looking 
at the houses, one can’t but fancy the inhabitants resemble them 
somewhat. The car, on its road to Dublin, passes by numbers of 
these — by more shabbiness than a Londoner will see in the course 
of his home peregrinations for a year. 

The capabilities of the country, however, are very great, and 
in many instances have been taken advantage of : for you see, 
besides the misery, numerous handsome houses and parks along 
the road, having fine lawns and woods ; and the sea is in our view 
at a quarter of an hour’s ride from Dublin. It is the continual 
appearance of this sort of wealth which makes the poverty more 
striking : and thus between the two (for there is no vacant space 
of fields between Kingstown and Dublin) the car reaches the city. 
There is but little commerce on this road, which was also in ex- 
tremely bad repair. It is neglected for the sake of its thriving 
neighbour the railroad; on which a dozen pretty little stations 
accommodate the inhabitants of the various villages through which 
we pass. 

The entrance to the capital is very handsome. There is no 
bustle and throng of carriages, as in London ; but you pass by 
numerous rows of neat houses, fronted with gardens and adorned 


ENTRANCE TO DUBLIN 


275 


with all sorts of gay-looking creepers. Pretty market-gardens, with 
trim beds of plants and shining glass-houses, give the suburbs a 
riante and cheerful look ; and, passing under the arch of the rail- 
way, we are in the city itself. Hence you come upon several old- 
fashioned, well-built, airy, stately streets, and through Eitzwilliam 
Square, a noble place, the garden of which is full of flowers and 
foliage. The leaves are green, and not black as in similar places 
in London ; the red-brick houses tall and handsome. Presently the 
car stops before an extremely big red house, in that extremely large 
square, Stephen’s Green, where Mr. O’Connell says there is one 
day or other to be a Parliament. There is room enough for that, 
or for any other edifice which fancy or patriotism may have a mind 
to erect, for part of one of the sides of the square is not yet built, 
and you see the fields and the country beyond. 


This then is the chief city of the aliens. — The hotel to which 
I had been directed is a respectable old edifice, much frequented 
by families from the country, and where the solitary traveller may 
likewise find society : for he may either use the “ Shelburne ” as an 
hotel or a boarding-house, in which latter case he is comfortably ac- 
commodated at the very moderate daily charge of six-and-eightpence. 
For this charge a copious breakfast is provided for him in the coffee- 
room, a perpetual luncheon is likewise there spread, a plentiful 
dinner is ready at six o’clock : after which there is a drawing-room, 
and a rubber of whist, with tay and coffee and cakes in plenty to 
satisfy the largest appetite. The hotel is majestically conducted by 
clerks and other officers ; the landlord himself does not appear, after 
the honest comfortable English fashion, but lives in a private 
mansion hard by, where his name may be read inscribed on a brass- 
plate, like that of any other private gentleman. 

A woman melodiously crying “ Dublin Bay herrings ” passed just 
as we came up to the door, and as that fish is famous throughout 
Europe, I seized the earliest opportunity and ordered a broiled one 
for breakfast. It merits all its reputation ; and in this respect I 
should think the Bay of Dublin is far superior to its rival of Naples. 
Are there any herrings in Naples Bay ? Dolphins there may be ; 
and Mount Vesuvius, to be sure, is bigger than even the Hill of 
Howth : but a dolphin is better in a sonnet than at a breakfast, 
and what poet is there that, at certain periods of the day, would 
hesitate in his choice between the two % 

With this famous broiled herring the morning papers are served 
up ; and a great part of these, too, gives opportunity of reflection 


276 


THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK 


to the new-comer, and shows him how different this country is from 
his own. Some hundred years hence, when students want to inform 
themselves of the history of the present day, and refer to files of 
Times and Chronicle for the purpose, I think it is possible that 
they will consult, not so much those luminous and philosophical 
leading articles which call our attention at present both by the 
majesty of their eloquence and the largeness of their type, but that 
they will turn to those parts of the journals into which information 
is squeezed in tlie smallest possible print : to the advertisements, 
namely, the law and police reports, and to the instructive narratives 
supplied by that ill-used body of men who transcribe knowledge at 
the rate of a penny a line. 

The papers before me {The Morning Register^ Liberal and 
Roman Catholic ; Sannder^s Neivs-letter^ neutral and Conservative) 
give a lively picture of the movement of city and country on this 
present fourth day of July 1842, and the Englishman can scarcely 
fail, as he reads them, to note many small points of difference exist- 
ing between his own country and this. How do the Irish amuse 
themselves in the capitaH The love for theatrical exhibitions is 
evidently not very great. Theatre Royal — Miss Kemble and the 
Sonnambula, an Anglo-Italian importation. Theatre Royal, Abbey 
Street — The Temple of Magic and the Wizard, last week. Adelphi 
Theatre, Great Brunswick Street — The Original Seven Lancashire 
Bell-ringers : a delicious excitement' indeed ! Portobello Gardens 
— “The last Eruption but Six,” says the advertisement in 
capitals. And, finally, “ Miss Hayes will give her first and farewell 
concert at the Rotunda, previous to leaving her native country.” 
Only one instance of Irish talent do we read of, and that, in a 
desponding tone, announces its intention of quitting its native 
country. All the rest of the pleasures of the evening are importa- 
tions from Cockney-land. The Sonnambula from Covent Garden, 
the Wizard from the Strand, the Seven Lancashire Bell-ringers, 
from Islington or the City Road, no doubt ; and as for “ The last 
Eruption but Six,” it has erumped near the “ Elephant and Castle ” 
any time these two years, until the cockneys would wonder at it no 
longer. 

The commercial advertisements are but few — a few horses and 
cars for sale ; some flaming announcements of insurance companies ; 
some “ emporiums ” of Scotch tweeds and English broadcloths ; an 
auction for damaged sugar ; and an estate or two for sale. They 
lie in the columns languidly, and at their ease as it were : how 
different from the throng, and squeeze, and bustle of the commercial 
part of a London paper, where every man (except Mr. George 
Robins) states his case as briefly as possible, because thousands 


IRISH NEWSPAPERS 277 

more are to be heard besides himself, and as if he had no time for 
talking ! 

The most active advertisers are the schoolmasters. It is now 
the happy time of the Midsummer holidays ; and the pedagogues 
make wonderful attempts to encourage parents, and to attract fresh 
pupils for the ensuing half-year. Of all these announcements that 
of Madame Shanahan (a delightful name) is perhaps the most 
brilliant. “To Parents and Guardians. — Paris. — Such parents and 
guardians as may wish to entrust their children for education in its 
fullest extent to Madame Shanahan, can have the advantage of 
being conducted to Paris by her brother, the Rev. J. P. O’Reilly, 
of Church Street Chapel : ” which admirable arrangement carries 
the parents to Paris and leaves the children in Dublin. Ah, 
Madame, you may take a French title ; but your heart is still in 
your country, and you are to the fullest extent an Irishwoman 
still ! 

Fond legends are to be found in Irish books regarding places 
where you may now see a round tower and a little old chapel, 
twelve feet square, where famous universities are once said to have 
stood, and which have accommodated myriads of students. Mrs. 
Hall mentions Glendalough, in Wicklow, as one of these places 
of learning; nor can the fact be questioned, as the universities 
existed hundreds of years since, and no sort of records are left 
regarding them. A century hence some antiquary may light upon 
a Dublin paper, and form marvellous calculations regarding the 
state of education in the country. For instance, at Bective House 
Seminary, conducted by Doctor J. L. Burke, ex-scholar T. C. D., 
no less than two hundred and three young gentlemen took prizes at 
the Midsummer examination : nay, some of the most meritorious 
carried off a dozen premiums apiece. A Doctor Delaniere, ex-scholar 
T. C. D., distributed three hundred and twenty rewards to his young 
friends : and if we allow that one lad in twenty is a prizeman, it is 
clear that there must be six thousand four hundred and forty youths 
under the Doctor’s care. 

Other schools are advertised in the same journals, each with 
its hundred of prize-bearers ; and if other schools are advertised, 
how many more must there be in the country which are not adver- 
tised ! There must be hundreds of thousands of prizemen, millions 
of scholars : besides national-schools, hedge-schools, infant-schools, 
and the like. The English reader will see the accuracy of the 
calculation. 

In the Morning Register, the Englishman will find something 
to the full as curious and startling to him : you read gravely in 
the English language how the Bishop of Aureliopolis has just been 


278 


THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK 


consecrated ; and that the distinction has been conferred upon him 
by — tlie Holy Pontiff !— the Pope of Rome, by all that is holy ! 
Such an announcement sounds quite strange in Engluh, and in your 
own country, as it were : or isn’t it your own country ? Suppose 
the Archbishop of Canterbury were to send over a clergyman to 
Rome, and consecrate him Bishop of the Palatine or the Suburra, I 
wonder how his Holiness would like that 1 

There is a report of Doctor Miley’s sermon upon the occasion of 
the new bishop’s consecration ; and the Register happily lauds the 
discourse for its “refined and fervent eloquence.” The Doctor 
salutes the Lord Bishop of Aureliopolis on his admission among the 
“ Princes of the Sanctuary,” gives a blow en passant at the Estab- 
lished Church, whereof the revenues, he elegantly says, “ might 
excite the zeal of Dives or Epicurus to become a bishop,” and 
having vented his sly wrath upon the “ courtly artifice and intrigue” 
of the Bench, proceeds to make the most outrageous comparisons 
with regard to my Lord of Aureliopolis ; his virtues, his sincerity, 
and the severe privations and persecutions which acceptance of the 
episcopal office entails upon him. 

“ That very evening,” says the Register, “ the new bishop enter- 
tained at dinner, in the chapel-house, a select number of friends; 
amongst whom were the officiating prelates and clergymen who 
assisted in the ceremonies of the day. The repast was provided 
by Mr. Jude, of Grafton Street, and was served up in a style of 
elegance and comfort that did great honour to that gentleman’s 
character as a restaurateur. The wines were of the richest and 
rarest quality. It may be truly said to have been an entertainment 
where the feast of reason and the flow of soul predominated. The 
company broke up at nine.” 

And so my Lord is scarcely out of chapel but his privations 
begin ! Well. Let us hope that, in the course of his episcopacy, 
he may incur no greater hardships, and that Doctor Miley may come 
to be a bishop too in his time ; when perhaps he will have a better 
opinion of the Bench. 

The ceremony and feelings described are curious, I think ; and 
more so perhaps to a person who was in England only yesterday, 
and quitted it just as their Graces, Lordships, and Reverences were 
sitting down to dinner. Among what new sights, ideas, customs, 
does the English traveller find himself after that brief six hours’ 
journey from Holyhead ! 

There is but one jiart more of the papers to be looked at ; and 
that is the most painful of all. In the law reports of the Tipperary 


IRISH NEWSPAPERS 


279 

Special Commission sitting at Clonmel, you read that Patrick Byrne 
is brouglit up for sentence, for the murder of Robert Hall, Esq. : and 
Chief Justice Doherty says, “ Patrick Byrne, I will not now recapitu- 
late the circumstances of your enormous crime ; but guilty as you 
are of the barbarity of having perpetrated with your hand tlie foul 
murder of an unoffending old man — barbarous, cowardly, and cruel 
as that act was — there lives one more guilty man, and that is he 
whose diabolical mind hatched the foul conspiracy of which you were 
but the instrument and the perpetrator. Whoever that may be, I do 
not envy him his protracted existence. He has sent that aged gentle- 
man, without one moment’s warning, to face his God; but he has 
done more : he has brought you, unhappy man, with more delibera- 
tion and more cruelty, to face your God, with the weight of that 
man's blood upon you. I have now only to pronounce the sentence 
of the law : ” — it is the usual sentence, with the usual prayer of the 
judge, that the Lord may have mercy upon the convict’s soul. 

Timothy Woods, a young man of twenty years of age, is then 
tried for the murder of Michael Laffan. The Attorney-General states 
the case: — On the 19th of May last, two assassins dragged Laffan 
from the house of Patrick Cummins, fired a pistol-shot at him, and 
left him dead as they thought. Laffan, though mortally wounded, 
crawled away after the fall; when the assassins, still seeing him 
give signs of life, rushed after him, fractured his skull by blows of 
a pistol, and left him on a dunghill dead. There Laffan’s body lay 
for several hours, and nobody dared to touch it. Laffan’s widow 
found the body there two hours after the murder, and an inquest 
was held on the body as it lay on the dunghill. Laffan was driver 
on the lands of Kilnertin, wiiich were formerly held by Pat Cummins, 
the man who had the charge of the lands before Laffan was murdered; 
the latter was dragged out of Cummins’s house in the presence of a 
witness who refused to swear to the murderers, and was shot in sight 
of another witness, James Meara, who with other men was on the 
road : when asked whether he cried out, or whether he went to assist 
the deceased, Meara answers, Indeed I did not; we would not 
interfere — it was no business of ours ! ” 

Six more instances are given of attempts to murder ; on which 
the judge, in passing sentence, comments in the following way : — 

“The Lord Chief Justice addressed the several persons, and 
said — It was now his painful duty to pronounce upon them severally 
and respectively the punishment which the law and the court awarded 
against them for the crimes of which they had been convicted. 
Those crimes were one and all of them of no ordinary enormity — 
they were crimes which, in point of morals, involved the atrocious 


280 


THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK 


guilt of murder ; and if it had pleased God to spare their souls from 
the pollution of that offence, the court could not still shut its eyes to 
the fact, that although death had not ensued in consequence of the 
crimes of which they had been found guilty, yet it was not owing to 
their forbearance that such a dreadful crime had not been perpetrated. 
The prisoner, Michael Hughes, had been convicted of firing a gun at 
a person of the name of John Ryan (Luke) ; his horse had been 
killed, and no one could say that the balls were not intended for the 
prosecutor himself. The prisoner had fired one shot himself, and 
then called on his companion in guilt to discharge another. One of 
these shots killed Ryan’s mare, and it was by the mercy of God that 
the life of the prisoner had not become forfeited by his own act. 
The next culprit was John Pound, who was equally guilty of the 
intended outrage perpetrated on the life of an unoffending individual 
— that individual a female, surrounded by her little children, five or 
six in number — with a complete carelessness to the probable con- 
sequences, while she and her family were going, or had gone, to bed. 
The contents of a gun were discharged through the door, which 
entered the panel in three different places. The deaths resulting 
from this act might have been extensive, but it was not a matter of 
any moment how many were deprived of life. The woman had just 
risen from her prayers, preparing herself to sleep under the protection 
of that arm which would shield the child and protect the innocent, 
when she was wounded. As to Cornelius Flynn and Patrick Dwyer, 
they likewise were the subjects of similar imputations and similar 
observations. There was a very slight difference between them, but 
not such as to amount to any real distinction. They had gone upon 
a common illegal purpose, to the house of a respectable individual, 
for the purpose of interfering with the domestic arrangements he 
thought fit to make. They had no sort of right to interfere with 
the disposition of a man’s affairs; and what would be the conse- 
quences if the reverse were to be held^ No imputation had ever 
been made upon the gentleman whose house was visited, but he was 
desired to dismiss another, under the pains and penalties of death, 
although that other was not a retained servant, but a friend who 
had come to Mr. Hogan on a visit. Because this visitor used some- 
times to inspect the men at work, the lawless edict issued that he 
should be put away. Good God ! to what extent did the prisoners 
and such misguided men intend to carry out their objects Where 
was their dictation to cease ? are they, and those in a similar rank, 
to take upon themselves to regulate how many and what men a 
farmer should take into his employment 1 Were they to be the 
judges whether a servant had discharged his duty to his principal *? or 
was it because a visitor happened to come, that the host should turn 


IRISH NEWSPAPERS 


281 


him away, under the pains and penalties of death 'i His Lordship, 
after adverting to the guilt of the prisoners in this case — the last two 
persons convicted, Thomas Stapleton and Thomas Gleeson — said their 
case was so recently before the public, that it was sufficient to say 
they were morally guilty of what might be considered wilful and 
deliberate murder. Murder was most awful, because it could only 
be suggested by deliberate malice, and the act of the prisoners was 
the result of that base, malicious, and diabolical disposition. What 
was the cause of resentment against the unfortunate man who had 
been shot at, and so desperately wounded '? Why, he had dared to 
comply with the wishes of a just landlord ; and because the landlord, 
for the benefit of his tenantry, proposed that the farms should be 
squared, those who acquiesced in his wishes were to be equally the 
victims of the assassin. What were the facts in this case? The 
two prisoners at the bar, Stapleton and Gleeson, sprang out at the 
man as he was leaving work, placed him on his knees, and without 
giving him a moment of preparation, commenced the work of blood, 
intending deliberately to despatch that unprepared and unoffending 
individual to eternity. What country was it that they lived in, in 
which such crimes could be perpetrated in the open light of day ? It 
was not necessary that deeds of darkness should be shrouded in the 
clouds of night, for the darkness of the deeds themselves was con- 
sidered a sufficient protection. He (the Chief Justice) was not aware 
of any solitary instance at the present Commission, to show that the 
crimes committed were the consequences of poverty. Poverty should 
be no justification, however ; it might be some little palliation, but 
on no trial at this Commission did it appear that the crime could be 
attributed to distress. His Lordship concluded a most impressive 
address, by sentencing the six prisoners called up to transportation 
for life. 

“ The clock was near midnight as the court was cleared, and 
the whole of the proceedings were solemn and impressive in the 
extreme. The Commission is likely to prove extremely beneficial 
in its results on the future tranquillity of the country.” 

I confess, for my part, to that common cant and sickly senti- 
mentality, which, thank God ! is felt by a great number of people 
nowadays, and which leads them to revolt against murder, whether 
performed by a ruffian’s knife or a hangman’s rope : whether accom- 
panied with a curse from the thief as he blows his victim’s brains 
out, or a prayer from my Lord on the bench in his wig and black 
cap. Nay, is all the cant and sickly sentimentality on our side, 
and might not some such charge be applied to the admirers of the 
good old fashion ? Long ere this is printed, for instance, Byrne and 


282 


THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK 


Woods have been hanged : * sent “to foce their God,” as the Chief 
Justice says, “with the weight of their victim’s blood upon them,” 
— a just observation ; and remember that it is ive who send them. 
It is true that the judge hopes Heaven will have mercy upon their 
souls; but are such recommendations of particular weight because 
they come from the bench % Psha ! If we go on killing people 
without giving them time to repent, let us at least give up the 
cant of praying for their souls’ salvation. We find a man drowning 
in a well, shut the lid upon him, and heartily pray that he may get 
out. Sin has hold of him, and we stand aloof, and hope that he 
may escape. Let us give up this ceremony of condolence, and be 
honest, like the witness, and say, “Let him save himself or not, 
it’s no business of ours.” . . . Here a waiter, with a very broad, 
though insinuating accent, says, “ Have you done with the Sand- 
thers^ sir*? there’s a gentleman waiting for’t these two hours.” 
And so he carries off that strange picture of pleasure and pain, 
trade, theatres, schools, courts, churches, life and death, in Ireland, 
which a man may buy for a fourpenny-piece. 


The papers being read, it became my duty to discover the town ; 
and a handsomer town, with fewer people in it, it is impossible to 
see on a summer’s day. In the whole wide square of Stephen’s 
Green, I think there were not more than two nursery-maids to keep 
company with the statue of George I., who rides on horseback in 
the middle of the garden, the horse having his foot up to trot, as 
if he wanted to go out of town too. Small troops of dirty children 
(too poor and dirty to have lodgings at Kingstown) were squatting 
here and there upon the sunshiny steps, the only clients at the 
thresholds of the professional gentlemen whose names figure on 
brass-plates on the doors. A stand of lazy carmen, a policeman 
or two with clinking boot-heels, a couple of moaning beggars leaning 
against the rails and calling upon the Lord, and a fellow with a 
toy and book stall, where the lives of St. Patrick, Robert Emmett, 
and Lord Edward Fitzgerald may be bought for double their value, 
were all the population of the Green. 

At the door of the Kildare Street Club, I saw eight gentlemen 
looking at two boys playing at leapfrog : at the door of the Univer- 

* The two men were executed pursuant to sentence, and both persisted 
solemnly in denying their guilt. There can be no doubt of it : but it appears 
to be a point of honour with these unhappy men to make no statement which 
may incriminate the witnesses who appeared on their behalf, and on their 
part perjured themselves equally. 


A WALK THROUGH DUBLIN 


283 


sity six lazy porters, in jockey-caps, were sunning themselves on a 
bench — a sort of bine-bottle race ; and the Bank on the opposite 
side did not look as if sixpence-wortli of change had been negotiated 
there during the day. There was a lad pretending to sell umbrellas 
under the colonnade, almost the only instance of trade going on ; 
and I began to think of Juan Fernandez, or Cambridge in the long 
vacation. In the courts of the College, scarce the ghost of a gyp or 
the shadow of a bed-maker. 

In spite of the solitude, the square of the College is a fine 
sight : a large ground, surrounded by buildings of various ages and 
styles, but comfortable, handsome, and in good repair; a modern 
row of rooms; a row that has been Elizabethan once; a hall and 
senate-house, facing each other, of the style of George I. ; and a 
noble library, with a range of many windows, and a fine manly 
simple fiu^ade of cut stone. The library was shut. The librarian, 
I suppose, is at the seaside ; and the only part of the establishment 
which I could see was the museum, to which one of the jockey- 
capped porters conducted me, up a wide dismal staircase (adorned 
with an old pair of jack-boots, a dusty canoe or two, a few helmets, 
and a South Sea Islander’s armour), which passes through a hall 
hung round with cobwebs (with which the blue-bottles are too wise 
to meddle), into an old mouldy room, filled with dingy glass-cases, 
under which the articles of curiosity or science were partially visible. 
In the middle was a very seed]/ camelopard (the word has grown to 
be English by this time), the straw splitting through his tight old 
skin and the black cobbler’s- wax stuffing the dim orifices of his eyes. 
Other beasts formed a pleasing group around him, not so tall, but 
equally mouldy and old. The porter took me round to the cases, 
and told me a great number of fibs concerning their contents : there 
was the harp of Brian Boru, and the sword of some one else, and 
other cheap old gimcracks with their corollary of lies. The place 
would have been a disgrace to Don Saltero. I was quite glad to 
walk out of it, and down the dirty staircase again : about the orna- 
ments of which the jockey-capped gyp had more figments to tell ; 
an atrocious one (I forget what) relative to the pair of boots ; near 
which — a fine specimen of collegiate taste — were the shoes of Mr. 
O’Brien, the Irish giant. If the collection is worth preserving, — 
and indeed the mineralogical specimens look quite as awful as those 
in the British Museum, — one thing is clear, that the rooms are 
worth sweeping. A pail of water costs nothing, a scrubbing-brush 
not much, and a charwoman might be hired for a trifle, to keep the 
room in a decent state of cleanliness. 

Among the curiosities is a mask of the Dean — not the scoffer 
and giber, not the fiery politician, nor the courtier of St. John and 


284 . 


THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK 


Harley, equally ready with servility and scorn ; but the poor old 
man, whose great intellect had deserted him, and who died old, 
wild, and sad. The tall forehead is fallen away in a ruin, the 
mouth has settled in a hideous vacant smile. Well, it was a mercy 
for Stella that she died first : it was better that she should be killed 
by his unkindness than by the sight of his misery ; which, to such 
a gentle heart as that, would have been harder still to bear. 

The Bank, and other public buildings of Dublin, are justly 
famous. In the former may still be seen the room which was the 
House of Lords formerly, and where the Bank directors now sit, 
under a clean marble image of George III. The House of Commons 
has disappeared, for the accommodation of clerks and cashiers. The 
interior is light, splendid, airy, well furnished, and the outside of 
the building not less so. The Exchange, hard by, is an equally 
magnificent structure ; but the genius of commerce has deserted it, 
for all its architectural beauty. There was nobody inside when I 
entered but a pert statue of George III. in a Roman toga, simpering 
and turning out his toes ; and two dirty children playing, whose 
hoop-sticks caused great clattering echoes under the vacant sounding 
dome. The neighbourhood is not cheerful, and has a dingy poverty- 
stricken look. 

Walking towards the river, you have on either side of you, at 
Carlisle Bridge, a very brilliant and beautiful prospect : the Four 
Courts and their dome to the left, the Custom House and its dome 
to the right ; and in this direction seaward, a considerable number 
of vessels are moored, and the quays are black and busy with the 
cargoes discharged from ships. Seamen cheering, herring-women 
bawling, coal-carts loading — the scene is animated and lively. 
Yonder is the famous Corn Exchange ; but the Lord Mayor is 
attending to his duties in Parliament, and little of note is going on. 
I had just passed his Lordship’s mansion in Dawson Street, — a 
q-ueer old dirty brick house, with dumpy urns at each extremity, 
and looking as if a storey of it had been cut off — a ras^e-house. 
Close at hand, and peering over a paling, is a statue of our blessed 
sovereign George II. How absurd these pompous images look, of 
defunct majesties, for whom no breathing soul cares a halfpenny ! 
It is not so with the effigy of William III., who has done something 
to merit a statue. At this minute the Lord Mayor has William’s 
effigy under a canvas, and is painting him of a bright green, picked 
out with yellow — his Lordship’s own livery. 

The view along the quays to the Four Courts has no small 
resemblance to a view along the quays at Paris, though not so lively 
as are even those quiet walks. The vessels do not come above- 
bridge, and the marine population remains constant about them. 


A WALK THROUGH DUBLIN 


285 


and about numerous dirty liquor-shops, eating-houses, and marine- 
store establishments, which are kept for their accommodation along 
the quay. As far as you can see, the shining Lilfey flows away 
eastward, hastening (like the rest of the inhabitants of Dublin) to 
the sea. 

In front of Carlisle Bridge, and not in the least crowded, though 
in the midst of Sackville Street, stands Nelson upon a stone pillar. 
The Post Office is on his riglit hand (only it is cut off) ; and on his 
left, “ Gresham’s ” and the “ Imperial Hotel.” Of the latter let 
me say (from subsequent experience) that it is ornamented by a 
cook who could dress a dinner by the side of M. Borel or M. Soyer. 
Would there were more such artists in this ill-fated country ! The 
street is exceedingly broad and handsome ; the shops at the com- 
mencement, rich and spacious ; but in Upper Sackville Street, which 
closes with the pretty building and gardens of the Rotunda, the 
appearance of wealth begins to fade somewhat, and the houses look 
as if they had seen better days. Even in this, the great street of 
the town, there is scarcely any one, and it is as vacant and listless 
as Pall Mall in October. In one of the streets off Sackville Street 
is the house and exhibition of the Irish Academy, which I went to 
see, as it was positively to close at the end of the week. While I 
was there, two other people came in; and we had, besides, the 
money-taker and a porter, to whom the former was reading, out of 
a newspaper, those Tipperary murders which were mentioned in a 
former page. The echo took up the theme, and hummed it gloomily 
through the vacant place. 

The drawings and reputation of Mr. Burton are well known in 
England ; his pieces were the most admired in the collection. The 
best draughtsman is an imitator of Maclise, Mr. Bridgeman, whose 
pictures are full of vigorous drawing, and remarkable too for their 
grace. I gave my catalogue to the two young ladies before 
mentioned, and have forgotten the names of other artists of merit, 
whose works decked the w^alls of the little gallery. Here, as in 
London, the Art Union is making a stir ; and several of the pieces 
were marked as the property of members of that body. The pos- 
session of some of these one would not be inclined to covet ; but it 
is pleasant to see that people begin to buy pictures at all, and there 
will be no lack of artists presently, in a country where nature is 
so beautiful, and genius so plenty. In speaking of the fine arts 
and of views of Dublin, it may be said that Mr. Petrie’s designs 
for Curry’s Guide-book of the City are exceedingly beautiful, and, 
above all, trustworthy : no common quality in a descriptive artist 
at present. 

Having a couple of letters of introduction to leave, I had the 


286 


THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK 


pleasure to find the blinds down at one house, and the window in 
papers at another ; and at each place the knock was answered in 
tliat leisurely way by one of those dingy female lieutenants who 
have no need to tell you that families are out of town. So the 
solitude became very painful, and I thought I would go back and 
talk to the waiter at the “ Shelburne,” the only man in the whole 
kingdom that I knew. I had been accommodated with a queer 
little room and dressing-room on the ground-floor, looking towards 
the Green : a black- faced good-humoured chambermaid had promised 
to perform a deal of scouring which was evidently necessary (a fact 
she might have observed for six months back, only she is no doubt 
of an absent turn), and when I came back from the walk, I saw the 
little room was evidently enjoying itself in the sunshine, for it had 
opened its window, and was taking a breath of fresh air, as it looked 
out upon the Green. Here is a portrait of the little window. 



As I came up to it in the street, its appearance made me burst 
out laughing, very much to the surprise of a ragged cluster of idlers 
lolling upon the steps next door ; and I have drawn it here, not 
because it is a particularly picturesque or rare kind of window, but 
because, as I fancy, there is a sort of moral in it. You don’t see 
sucli windows commonly in respectable English inns — windows lean- 
ing gracefully upon hearth-brooms for support. Look out of that 
window without the hearth-broom and it would cut your head oft* : 
how the beggars would start that are always sitting on the steps 
next door ! Is it prejudice that makes one prefer the English 
window, that relies on its own ropes and ballast (or lead if you 
like), and does not need to be propped by any foreign aid? or 
is this only a solitary instance of the kind, and are there no other 


A HOSPITABLE RECEPTION 


287 

specimens in Ireland of the careless, dangerous, extravagant hearth- 
broom system ? 

Ill the midst of these reflections (which might have been carried 
much farther, for a person with an allegorical turn might examine 
the entire country through this window), a most wonderful cab, 
with an immense prancing cab-horse, was seen to stop at the door 
of the hotel, and Pat the waiter tumbling into the room swiftly with 
a card in his hand, says, “ Sir, the gentleman of this card is waiting 
for you at the door.” Mon Dieu ! it was an invitation to dinner ! 
and I almost leapt into the arms of the man in the cab — so delightful 
was it to And a friend in a place where, a moment before, I had 
been as lonely as Robinson Crusoe. 

The only drawback, perhaps, to pure happiness, when riding in 
such a gorgeous equipage as this, was that we could not drive up 
Regent Street, and meet a few creditors, or acquaintances at least. 
However, Pat, I thought, was exceedingly awe-stricken by my dis- 
appearance in this vehicle ; which had evidently, too, a considerable 
effect upon some other waiters at the “ Shelburne,” with whom I 
was not as yet so familiar. The mouldy camelopard at the Trinity 
College “ Musayum ” was scarcely taller than the bay-horse in the 
cab ; the groom behind was of a corresponding smallness. The cab 
was of a lovely olive-green, picked out with white, on high springs 
and enormous wheels, which, big as they were, scarcely seemed to 
touch the earth. The little tiger swung gracefully up and down, 
holding on by the hood, which was of the material of which the most 
precious and polished boots are made. As for the lining - — but here 
we come too near the sanctity of private life ; suffice that there was 
a kind friend inside, who (though by no means of the fairy sort) 

was as welcome as any fairy in the finest chariot. W had 

seen me landing from the packet that morning, and was the very 
man who in London, a month previous, had recommended me to 
the “ Shelburne.” These facts are not of much consequence to the 
jiublic, to be siu'e, except that an explanation was necessary of the 
miraculous appearance of the cab and horse. 

Our course, as may be imagined, was towards the seaside ; for 
whither else should an Irishman at this season go ? Not far from 
Kingstown is a house devoted to the purpose of festivity : it is 
called Salt Hill, stands upon a rising ground, commanding a fine 
view of the bay and the railroad, and is kept by persons bearing 
the celebrated name of Lovegrove. It is in fact a sea-Greenwich, 
and though there are no marine whitebait, other fishes are to be 
had in plenty, and especially the famous Bray trout, which does 
not ill deserve its reputation. 

Here we met three young men, who may be called by the 


288 


THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK 


names of their several counties — Mr. Galway, Mr. Roscommon, 
and Mr. Clare ; and it seemed that I was to complain of solitude 
no longer : for one straightway invited me to his county, where 
was the finest salmon-fishing in the world ; anotlier said he would 
drive me through the county Kerry in his four-in-hand drag ; and 
the third had some propositions of sport equally hospitable. As 
for going down to some races, on tlie Curragh of Kildare I think, 
which were to be held on the next and the three following days, 
there seemed to be no question about that. That a man should 
miss a race within forty miles, seemed to be a point never contem- 
plated by these jovial sporting fellows. 

Strolling about in the neighbourhood before dinner, we went 
down to the seashore, and to some caves which had lately been 
discovered there ; and two Irish ladies, who were standing at the 
entrance of one of them, permitted me to take their portraits, 
which were pronounced to be pretty accurate. 

They said they had not acquiesced in the general Temperance 
movement that had taken place throughout the country; and, 
indeed, if the truth must be known, it was only under promise of 
a glass of whisky apiece that their modesty could be so far over- 
come as to permit them to sit for their portraits. By the time 
they were done, a crowd of both sexes had gathered round, and 
expressed themselves quite ready to sit upon the same terms. But 
though there was great variety in their countenances, there was not 
much beauty ; and besides, dinner was by this time ready, which 
has at certain periods a charm even greater than art. 

The bay, which had been veiled in mist and grey in the morning, 
was now shining under the most beautiful clear sky, which presently 
became rich with a thousand gorgeous hues of sunset. The view 
was as smiling and delightful a one as can be conceived, — ^just such 
a one as should be seen a travers a good dinner ; with no fatiguing 
sublimity or awful beauty in it, but brisk, brilliant, sunny, enlivening. 
In fact, in placing his banqueting-house here, Mr. Lovegrove had, 
as usual, a brilliant idea. You must not have too much view, or a 
severe one, to give a relish to a good dinner ; nor too much music, 
nor too quick, nor too slow, nor too loud. Any reader who has 
dined at a tahle-d^hote in Germany will know the annoyance of 
this ; a set of musicians immediately at your back will sometimes 
play you a melancholy polonaise ; and a man with a good ear must 
perforce eat in time, and your soup is quite cold before it is 
swallowed. Then, all of a sudden, crash goes a brisk gallop ! and 
you are obliged to gulp your victuals at the rate of ten miles an 
hour. And in respect of conversation during a good dinner, the 
same rules of propriety should be consulted. Deep and sublime 


A DINNER AT LOVEGROVE’S 


289 


talk is as improper as sublime prospects. Dante and champagne (I 
was going to say Milton and oysters, but that is a pun) are quite 
unfit themes of dinner-talk. Let it be light, brisk, not oppressive 
to the brain. Our conversation was, I recollect, just the thing. 
We talked about the last Derby tlie whole time, and the state of 
the odds for the St. Leger ; nor was the Ascot Cup forgotten ; and 
a bet or two was gaily booked. 

Meanwhile the sky, which had been blue and then red, assumed 
towards the horizon, as the red was sinking under it, a gentle 
delicate cast of green. Howth Hill became of a darker purple, and 
the sails of the boats rather dim. The sea grew deeper and deeper 
in colour. The lamps at the railroad dotted the line with fire ; and 
the lighthouses of the bay began to flame. The trains to and from 
the city rushed flashing and hissing by. In a word, everybody said 
it was time to light a cigar ; which was done, the conversation about 
the Derby still continuing. 

“ Put out that candle,” said Roscommon to Clare. This the 
latter instantly did by flinging the taper out of the window upon 
the lawn, which is a thoroughfare ; and where a great laugh arose 
among half a score of beggar-boys, who had been under the window 
for some time past, repeatedly requesting the company to throw out 
sixpence between them. 

Two other sporting young fellows had now joined the company ; 
and as by this time claret began to have rather a mawkish taste, 
whisky-and-water was ordered, which was drunk upon the perron 
before the house, whither the whole party adjourned, and where 
for many hours we delightfully tossed for sixpences — a noble and 
fascinating sport. Nor would these remarkable events have been 
narrated, had I not received express permission from the gentlemen 
of the party to record all that was said and done. Who knows but 
a thousand years hence some antiquary or historian may find a moral 
in this description of the amusement of the British youth at the 
present enlightened time % 


HOT LOBSTER. 

— You take a lobster, about three feet long if possible, re- 
move the shell, cut or break the flesh of the fish in pieces not too 
small. Some one else meanwhile makes a mixture of mustard, 
vinegar, catsup, and lots of cayenne pepper. You produce a machine 
called a despatcher, which has a spirit-lamp under it that is usually 
illuminated with whisky. The lobster, the sauce, and near half a 
pound of butter are placed in the despatcher, which is immediately 
closed. When boiling, the mixture is stirred up, the lobster being 
5 T 


290 


THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK 


sure to heave about in the pan in a convulsive manner, while it 
emits a remarkably rich and agreeable odour through the apartment. 
A glass and a half of sherry is now thrown into the pan, and the 
contents served out hot, and eaten by the company. Porter is 
commonly drunk, and whisky-punch afterwards, and the dish is fit 
for an emperor. 

R.B . — You are recommended not to hurry yourself in getting 
up the next morning, and may take soda-water with advantage. — 
Prohatum esL 


CHAPTER II 


A COUNTRY-HOUSE IN KILDARE— SKETCHES OF AN IRISH 
FAMILY AND FARM 

I T had been settled among my friends, I don’t know for what 
particular reason, that the Agricultural Show at Cork was an 
exhibition I was specially bound to see. When, therefore, a 
gentleman to whom I had brought a letter of introduction kindly 
offered me a seat in his carriage, which was to travel by short days’ 
journeys to that city, I took an abrupt farewell of Pat the waiter, 
and some other friends in Dublin : proposing to renew our acquaint- 
ance, however, upon some future day. 

We started then one fine afternoon on the road from Dublin to 
Naas, which is the main southern road from the capital to Munster, 
and met, in the course of the ride of a score 'of miles, a dozen of 
coaches very heavily loaded, and bringing passengers to the city. 
The exit from Dublin this way is not much more elegant than the 
outlet by way of Kingstown : for though the great branches of the 
city appear flourishing enough as yet, the small outer ones are in 
a sad state of decay. Houses drop off here and there, and dwindle 
wofully in size ; we are got into the back-premises of the seemingly 
prosperous place, and it looks miserable, careless, and deserted. We 
passed through a street which was thriving once, but has fallen 
since into a sort of decay, to judge outwardly, — St. Thomas’s Street. 
Emmett was hanged in the midst of it. And on pursuing the line 
of street, and crossing the Great Canal, you come presently to a 
fine tall square building in the outskirts of the town, which is no 
more nor less than Kilmainham Gaol, or Castle. Poor Emmett 
is the Irish darling still — his history is on every bookstall in the 
city, and yonder trim-looking brick gaol a spot where Irishmen 
may go and pray. Many a martyr of theirs has appeared and 
died in front of it,— found guilty of “ wearing of the green.” 

There must be a fine view from the gaol windows, for v'e 
presently come to a great stretch of brilliant green country, leaving 
the Dublin hills lying to the left, picturesque in their outline, and 
of wonderful colour. It seems to me to be quite a different colour 
to that in England — different-shaped clouds — different shadows and 


292 


THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK 


lights. The country is ’svell tilled, well peopled ; the hay-harvest 
on the ground, and the people taking advantage of the sunshine to 
gather it in ; but, in spite of everything, — green meadows, white 
villages and sunshine, — the place has a sort of sadness in the 
look of it. 

The first town we passed, as appears by reference to the Guide- 
book, is the little town of Rathcoole ; but in the space of three 
days Rathcoole has disappeared from my memory, with the ex- 
ception of a little low building which the village contains, and 
where are the quarters of the Irish constabulary. Nothing can 
be finer than the trim, orderly, and soldierlike appearance of this 
splendid corps of men. 

One has glimpses all along the road of numerous gentlemen’s 
places, looking extensive and prosperous, of a few mills by streams 
here and there ; but though the streams run still, the mill-wheels 
are idle for the chief part; and the road passes more than one 
long low village, looking bare and poor, but neat and white- washed : 
it seems as if the inhabitants were determined to put a decent look 
upon their poverty. One or two villages there were evidently 
appertaining to gentlemen’s seats ; these are smart enough, especi- 
ally that of Johnstown, near Lord Mayo’s fine domain, where the 
houses are of the Gothic sort, with pretty porches, creepers, and 
railings. Noble purple hills to the left and right keep up, as it 
were, an accompaniment to the road. 

As for the town of Naas, the first after Dublin that I have 
seen, what can be said of it but that it looks poor, mean, and yet 
somehow cheerful 1 There was a little bustle in the small shops, 
a few cars were jingling along the broadest street of the town — 
some sort of dandies and military individuals were lolling about 
right and left ; and I saw a fine court-house, where the assizes of 
Kildare county are held. 

But by far the finest, and I think the most extensive edifice 
in Naas, was a haystack in the inn-yard, the proprietor of which 
did not fail to make me remark its size and splendour. It was of 
such dimensions as to strike a cockney with respect and pleasure; 
and here standing just as the new crops were coming in, told 
a tale of opulent thrift and good husbandry. Are there many 
more such haystacks, I wonder, in Ireland? The crops along the 
road seemed healthy, though rather light : wheat and oats plenty, 
and especially flourishing ; hay and clover not so good ; and turnips 
(let the important remark be taken at its full value) almost entirely 
wanting. 

The little town, as they call it, of Kilcullen, tumbles down a 
hill and struggles up another ; the two being here picturesquely 


FIRST SYMPTOMS OF WANT 


293 

divided by the Liifey, over which goes an antique bridge. It 
boasts, moreover, of a portion of an abbey wall, and a piece of 
round tower, both on the hill summit, and to be seen (says the 
Guide-book) for many miles round. Here we saw the first public 
evidences of the distress of the country. There was no trade in 
the little place, and but few people to be seen, except a crowd 
round a meal-shop, where meal is distributed once a week by the 
neighbouring gentry. There must have been some hundreds of 
persons waiting about the doors ; women for the most part : some 
of their children were to be found loitering about the bridge much 
farther up the street ; but it was curious to note, amongst these 
undeniably starving people, how healthy their looks were. Going 
a little farther, we saw women pulling weeds and nettles in the 
hedges, on which dismal sustenance the poor creatures live, having 
no bread, no potatoes, no work. Well ! these women did not look 
thinner or more unhealthy than many a well-fed person. A 
company of English lawyers, now, look more cadaverous than these 
starving creatures. 

Stretching away from Kilcullen bridge, for a couple of miles 
or more, near the fine house and plantations of the Latouche 
family, is to be seen a much prettier sight, I think, than the 
finest park and mansion in the world. This is a tract of exces- 
sively green land, dotted over with brilliant white cottages, each 
with its couple of trim acres of garden, whei'e you see thi(;k 
potato-ridges covered with blossom, great blue plots of comfortable 
cabbages and such pleasant plants of the poor man’s garden. Two 
or three years since, the land was a marshy common, which had 
never since the days of the Deluge fed any being bigger than a 
snipe, and into which the poor people descended, draining and 
cultivating and rescuing the marsh from the water, and raising their 
cabins and setting up their little enclosures of two or three acres 
upon the land which they had thus created. “ Many of ’em has 
passed months in gaol for that,” said my informant (a groom on 
the back seat of my host’s phaeton) : for it appears that certain 
gentlemen in the neighbourhood looked upon the titles of these 
new colonists with some jealousy, and would have been glad to 
depose them ; but there were some better philosophers among the 
surrounding gentry, who advised that instead of discouraging the 
settlers it would be best to help them; and the consequence has been, 
that there are now two hundred flourishing little homesteads upon 
this rescued land, and as many families in comfort and plenty. 

Just at the confines of this pretty rustic republic, our pleasant 
afternoon’s drive ended ; and I must begin this tour with a mon- 
strous breach of confidence, by first describing what I saw. 


2.94 


THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK 


Well, then, we drove through a neat lodge-gate, with no stone 
lions or supporters, but riding well on its hinges, and looking fresh 
and white ; and passed by a lodge, not Gothic, but decorated with 
flowers and evergreens, with clean windows and a sound slate roof ; 
and then went over a trim road, through a few acres of grass, 
adorned with plenty of young firs and other healthy trees, under 
which were feeding a dozen of fine cows or more. The road led up 
to a house, or rather a congregation of rooms, built seemingly to 
suit the owner’s convenience, and increasing with his increasing 
wealth, or whim, or family. This latter is as plentiful as everything 
else about the jjlace ; and as the arrows incretised, the good-natured 
lucky father has been forced to multiply the quivers. 

First came out a young gentleman, the heir of the house, who, 
after greeting his papa, began examining the horses with much 
interest ; whilst three or four servants, quite neat and well dressed, 
and, wonderful to say, without any talking, began to occupy them- 
selves with the carriage, the passengers, and the trunks. Mean- 
while, the owner of the house had gone into the hall, which is 
snugly furnished as a morning-room, and where one, two, three 
young ladies came in to greet him. The young ladies having con- 
cluded their embraces, performed (as I am bound to say from 
experience, both in London and Paris) some very appropriate and 
well-finished curtseys to the strangers arriving. And these three 
young persons were presently succeeded by some still younger, who 
came without any curtseys at all ; but, bounding and jumping, and 
shouting out “ Papa ” at the top of their voices, they fell forthwith 
upon that worthy gentleman’s person, taking possession this of his 
knees, that of his arms, that of his whiskers, as fancy or taste 
might dictate. 

“Are there any more of you?” says he, with perfect good- 
humour ; and, in fact, it appeared that there were some more in the 
nursery, as we subsequently had occasion to see. 

Well, this large happy family are lodged in a house than which 
a prettier or more comfortable is not to be seen even in England ; 
of the furniture of which it may be in confidence said, that each 
article is only made to answer one purpose : — thus, that chairs are 
never called upon to exercise the versatility of their genius by 
propping up windows; that chests of drawers are not obliged to 
move their unwieldy persons in order to act as locks to doors ; that 
the windows are not variegated by paper, or adorned with wafers, 
as in other places which I have seen : in fact, that the place is just 
as comfortable as a place can be. 

And if these comforts and reminiscences of three days’ date are 
enlarged upon at some length, the reason is simply this : — this is 


THE INN AT WATERFORD 295 

written at what is supposed to bo the best inn at one of the best 
towns of Ireland, Waterford. Dinner is just over; it is assize- 
week, and tlie table-d' hote was surrounded for the chief part by 
English attorneys — the cyouncillors (as the bar are pertinaciously 
called) dining upstairs in private. Well, on going to the public 
room and being about to lay down my hat on the sideboard, I was 
. obliged to pause — out of regard to a fine thick coat of dust which 
had been kindly left to gather for some days past I should think, 
and which it seemed a shame to displace. Yonder is a chair 
basking quietly in the sunshine ; some round object has evidently 
reposed upon it (a hat or plate probably), for you see a clear circle 
of black horsehair in the middle of the chair and dust all round it. 
Not one of those dirty napkins that the four waiters carry would 
wipe away the grime from the chair, and take to itself a little dust 
more ! The people in the room are shouting out for the waiters, 
who cry, “ Yes, sir,” peevishly, and don’t come ; but stand bawling 
and jangling, and calling each other names, at the sideboard. The 
dinner is plentiful and nasty — raw ducks, raw peas, on a crumpled 
tablecloth, over which a waiter has just spirted a pint of obstre- 
perous cider. The windows are open, to give free view of a crowd of 
old beggar-women, and of a fellow playing a cursed Irish pipe. Pre- 
sently this delectable apartment fills with choking peat-smoke ; and 
on asking what is the cause of this agreeable addition to the pleasures 
of the place, you are told that they are lighting a fire in a back-room. 

Why should lighting a fire in a back-room fill a whole enormous 
house with smoke h Why should four waiters stand and jatv and 
gesticulate among themselves, instead of waiting on the guests 1 
Why should ducks be raw, and dust lie quiet in places where a 
hundred people pass daily 1 All these points make one think very 

regretfully of neat, pleasant, comfortable, prosperous H town, 

where the meat was cooked, and the rooms were clean, and the 
servants didn’t talk. Nor need it be said here, that it is as cheap 
to have a house clean as dirty, and that a raw leg of mutton costs 
exactly the same sum as one cuit d point. And by this moral 
earnestly hoping that all Ireland may profit, let us go back to 
H , and the sights to be seen there. 

There is no need to particularise the chairs and tables any 
farther, nor to say what sort of conversation and claret we had; 
nor to set down the dishes served at dinner. If an Irish gentleman 
does not give you a more hearty welcome than an Englishman, at 
least he has a more hearty manner of welcoming you ; and while 
tlie latter reserves his fun and humour (if he possess those qualities) 
for his particular friends, the former is ready to laugh and talk his 
best with all the world, and give way entirely to his mood. And 


THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK 


296 

it would be a good opportunity here for a man wlio is clever at 
philoso])hising to expound various theories upon the inodes of 
liospitality practised in various parts of Europe. In a couple of 
hours’ talk, an Englishman will give you his notions on trade, 
jiolitics, the crops : the last run with the hounds, or the weather : 
it requires a long sitting, and a bottle of wine at the least, to induce 
him to laugh cordially, or to speak unreservedly ; and if you joke 
with him before you know liiin, he will assuredly set you down as 
a low impertinent fellow. In two hours, and over a pipe, a German 
will be quite ready to let loose the easy floodgates of Ids sentiment, 
and confide to you many of the secrets of his soft heart. In two 
hours a Frenchman will say a liundred and twenty smart, witty, 
brilliant, false things, and will care for you as much then as he 
would if you saw him every day for twenty years — that is, not one 
single straw ; and in two hours an Irishman will have allowed his 
jovial humour to unbutton, and gambolled and frolicked to his 
heart’s content. Which of these, putting Monsieur out of the 
question, will stand by his friend with the most constancy, and 
maintain his steady wish to serve him % That is a question which 
the Englishman (and I think with a little of his ordinary cool as- 
sumption) is disposed to decide in his own favour ; but it is clear 
that for a stranger the Irish ways are the pleasantest, for here he 
is at once made happy and at home ; or at ease rather ; for home 
is a strong word, and implies much more than any stranger can 
expect, or even desire to claim. 

Nothing could be more delightful to witness than the evident 
affection which the children and parents bore to one another, and 
the cheerfulness and happiness of their family-parties. The father 
of one lad went with a party of his friends and family on a pleasure- 
party, in a liandsome coach-and-four. The little fellow sat on the 
coach-box and played with the whip very wistfully for some time : 
the sun was shining, the horses came out in bright harness, with 
glistening coats; one of the girls brought a geranium to stick in 
l)apa’s button-hole, who was to drive. But although there was 
room in the coach, and though papa said he should go if he liked, 
and though the lad longed to go — as who wouldn’t — he jumped off 
the box, and said he would not go : mamma would like him to stop 
at home and keep his sister company ; and so down he went like 
a hero. Does this story appear trivial to any one who reads it 1 
If so, he is a pompous fellow, whose opinion is not worth the 
having ; or he has no children of his own ; or he has forgotten the 
day when he was a child himself ; or he has never repented of the 
surly selfishness with which he treated brothers and sisters, after 
the habit of young English gentlemen. 


A KILDARE FARM 


297 

“ That’s a list that Uncle keeps of his children,” said the same 
young fellow, seeing his uncle reading a paper ; and to understand 
this joke, it must be remembered that the children of the gentleman 
called Uncle came into the breakfast-room by half-dozens. “ That’s 
a ruDi fellow,” said the eldest of these latter to me, as his father 
went out of the room, evidently thinking his papa was the greatest 
wit and wonder in the whole world. And a great merit, as it ap- 
peared to me, on the part of these worthy parents was, that they 
consented not only to make, but to take jokes from their young 
ones ; nor was the parental authority in the least weakened by this 
kind familiar intercourse. 

A word with regard to the ladies so far. Those I have seen 
appear to the full as well educated and refined, and far more frank 
and cordial, than the generality of the fair creatures on the other 
side of the Channel. I have not heard anything about poetry, to 
be sure, and in only one house have seen an album ; but I have 
heard some capital music, of an excellent family sort — that sort 
which is used, namely, to set young people dancing, which they 
have done merrily for some nights. In respect of drinking, among 
the gentry teetotalism does not, thank Heaven ! as yet appear to 
prevail; but although the claret has been invariably good, there 
has been no improper use of it.* Let all English be recommended 
to be very careful of whisky, which experience teaches to be a very 
deleterious drink. Natives say that it is wholesome, and may be 
sometimes seen to use it with impunity; but the whisky-fever is 
naturally more fatal to strangers than inhabitants of the country ; 
and whereas an Irishman will sometimes imbibe a half-dozen 
tumblers of the poison, two glasses will be often found to cause 
headaches, heartburns, and fevers to a person newly arrived in the 
country. The said whisky is always to be had for the asking, but 
is not produced at the bettermost sort of tables. 

Before setting out on our second day’s journey, we had time to 

accompany the well-pleased owner of H town over some of his 

fields and out-premises. Nor can there be a pleasanter sight to 

owner or stranger. Mr. P farms four hundred acres of land 

about his house ; and employs on this estate no less than a hundred 
and ten persons. He says there is full work for every one of them ; 
and to see the elaborate state of cultivation in which the land was, 
it is easy to understand how such an agricultural regiment were 
employed. The estate is like a well-ordered garden : we walked 
into a huge field of potatoes, and the landlord made us remark that 

* The only instances of intoxication that I have heard of as yet, have been 
on the part of two “cyouncillors,” undeniably drunk and noisy yesterday after 
the bar dinner at Waterfoi-d. 


298 


THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK 


there was not a single weed between the furrows ; and the whole 
formed a vast flower-bed of a score of acres. Every bit of land up 
to the hedge-side was fertilised and full of produce : the space left 
for the plough having afterwards been gone over, and yielding its 
fullest proportion of “ fruit.” In a turnip-field were a score or more 
of women and children, who were marching through the ridges, 
removing the young plants where two or three had grown together, 
and leaving only the most healthy. Every individual root in the 
field was thus the object of culture ; and the owner said that this 
extreme cultivation answered his purpose, and that the employment of 
all these hands (the women and children earn 6d. and 8d. a day all 
the year round), which gained him some reputation as a philanthro- 
pist, brought him profit as a farmer too ; for his crops were the best 
that land could produce. He has further the advantage of a large^tock 
for manure, and does everything for the land which art can do. 

Here we saw several experiments in manuring : an acre of 
turnips prepared with bone-dust ; another with “ Murray’s Composi- 
tion,” whereof I do not pretend to know the ingredients ; another 
with a new manure called guano. As far as turnips and a first 
year’s crop went, the guano carried the day. The plants on the 
guano acre looked to be three weeks in advance of their neighbours, 
and were extremely plentiful and healthy. I went to see this field 
two months after the above passage was written : the guano acre 
still kept the lead ; the bone-dust ran guano very hard ; and com- 
position was clearly distanced. 

Behind the house is a fine village of corn and hayricks, and a 
street of outbuildings, where all the work of the farm is prepared. 
Here were numerous people coming with pails for buttermilk, which 
the good-natured landlord made over to them. A score of men or 
more were busied about the place ; some at a grindstone, others at 
a forge — other fellows busied in the cart-houses and stables, all of 
which were as neatly kept as in the best farm in England. A little 
farther on was a flower-garden, a kitchen-garden, a hot-house just 
building, a kennel of fine pointers and setters; — indeed a noble 
feature of country neatness, thrift, and plenty. 

We went into the cottages and gardens of several of Mr. P ’s 

labourers, which were all so neat that I could not help fancying 
they were pet cottages erected under the landlord’s own superintend- 
ence, and ornamented to his order. But he declared that it was 
not so ; that the only benefit his labourers got from him was constant 
work, and a house rent-free ; and that the neatness of the gardens 
and dwellings was of their own doing. By making them a present 
of the house, he said, he made them a present of the pig and live 
stock, with which almost every Irish cotter pays his rent, so that 


A KILDARE FARM 


299 


eacli workman could have a bit of meat for his support ; — would 
that all labourers in the empire had as much ! With regard to the 
neatness of the houses, the best way to ensure this, he said, was for 
the master constantly to visit them — to awaken as much emulation 
as he could amongst the cottagers, so that each should make his 
place as good as his neighbour’s — and to take them good-humouredly 
to task if they failed in the requisite care. 

And so this pleasant day’s visit ended. A more practical person 
would have seen, no doubt, and understood much more than a mere 
citizen could, whose pursuits have been very different from those 
noble and useful ones here spoken of. But a man has no call to be 
a judge of turnips or live stock, in order to admire such an establish- 
ment as this, and heartily to appreciate the excellence of it. There 
are some happy organisations in the world which possess the great 
virtue Qi%>Tosperity. It implies cheerfulness, simplicity, shrewdness, 
perseverance, honesty, good health. See how, before the good- 
humoured resolution of such characters, ill-luck gives way, and 
fortune assumes their own smiling complexion ! Such men grow rich 
without driving a single hard bargain ; their condition being to make 
others prosper along with themselves. Thus, his very charity, another 
informant tells me, is one of the causes of my host’s good fortune. 
He might have three pounds a year from each of forty cottages, but 
instead prefers a hundred healthy workmen ; or he might have a 
fourth of the number of workmen, and a farm yielding a produce 
proportionately less ; but instead of saving the money of their wages, 
prefers a farm the produce of which, as I have heard from a gentle- 
man whom I take to be good authority, is unequalled elsewhere. 

Besides the cottages, we visited a pretty school, where children 
of an exceeding smallness were at their work, — the children of the 
Catholic peasantry. The few Protestants of the district do not 
attend the national-school, nor learn their alphabet or their multi- 
plication-table in company with their little Roman Catholic brethren. 

The clergyman, who lives hard by the gate of H town, in his 

communication with his parishioners cannot fail to see how much 
misery is relieved and how much good is done, _ by his neighbour; 
but though the two gentlemen are on good terms, the clergyman will 
not break bread with his Catholic fellow-Christian. There can be 
no harm, I hope, in mentioning this fact, as it is rather a public than 
a private matter ; and, unfortunately, it is only a stranger that is 
surprised by such a circumstance, which is quite familiar to residents 
of the country. There are Catholic inns and Protestant inns in the 
towns ; Catholic coaches and Protestant coaches on the roads ; nay, 
in the North, I have since heard of a High Church coach and a 
Low Church coach adopted by travelling Christians of either party. 


CHAPTER III 


FROM CARLOW TO WATERFORD 


HE next morning being fixed for the commencement of our 



journey towards Waterford, a carriage made its appearance 


in due time before the hall-door : an amateur stage-coach, 
with four fine horses, that were to carry us to Cork. The crew 
of the “ drag,” for the present, consisted of two young ladies, and 
two who will not be old, please Heaven ! for these thirty years ; 
three gentlemen whose collective weights might amount to fifty-four 
stone ; and one of smaller proportions, being as yet only twelve 
years old : to these were added a couple of grooms and a lady’s- 
maid. Subsequently we took in a dozen or so more passengers, who 
did not seem in the slightest degree to inconvenience the coach or 
the horses ; and thus was formed a tolerably numerous and merry 
party. The governor took the reins, with his geranium in his 
button-hole, and the place on the box was quarrelled for without 
ceasing, and taken by turns. 

Our day’s journey lay through a country more picturesque, 
though by no means so prosperous and well-cultivated, as the 
district through which we had passed on our drive from Dublin. 
This trip carried us through the county of Carlow and the town 
of that name : a wretched place enough, with a fine court-house, 
and a couple of fine churches : the Protestant church a noble 
structure, and the Catholic cathedral said to be built after some 
Continental model. The Catholics point to the structure with con- 
siderable pride : it was the first, I believe, of the many handsome 
cathedrals for their worship which have been built of late years in 
this country by the noble contributions of the poor man’s penny, 
and by the untiring energies and sacrifices of the clergy. Bishop 
Doyle, the founder of the church, has the place of honour within it ; 
nor, perhaps, did any Christian pastor ever merit the affection of 
his ffock more than that great and high-minded man. He was the 
best champion the Catholic Church and cause ever had in Ireland ; 
in learning, and admirable kindness and virtue, the best example to 
the clergy of his religion ; and if the country is now filled with 
schools, where the humblest peasant in it can have the benefit of 


CARLOW 


301 


a liberal and wholesome education, it owes this great boon mainly 
to his noble exertions, and to the spirit which tliey awakened. 

As for the architecture of the cathedral, I do not fancy a j)ro- 
fessional man would find much to praise in it : it seems to me over- 
loaded with ornaments, nor were its innumerable spires and pinnacles 
the more pleasing to the eye because some of them were out of the 
perpendicular. The interior is quite plain, not to say bare and 
unfinished. Many of the chapels in the country that I have since 
seen are in a similar condition ; for when the walls are once raised, 
the enthusiasm of the subscribers to the building seems somewhat 
characteristically to grow cool, and you enter at a porch that would 
suit a palace, with an interior scarcely more decorated than a barn. 
A wide large fioor, some confession-boxes against the blank walls 
here and there, with some humble pictures at the “ stations,” and 
the statue, under a mean canopy of red woollen stuff, were the chief 
furniture of the cathedral. 

The severe homely features of the good bisliop were not very 
favourable subjects for Mr. Hogan’s chisel ; but a figure of prostrate 
weeping Ireland, kneeling by the prelate’s side, and for whom he is 
imploring protection, has much beauty. In the chapels of Dublin 
and Cork some of this artist’s works may be seen, and his country- 
men are exceedingly proud of him. 

Connected with the Catholic cathedral is a large tumble-down- 
looking divinity college ; there are upwards of a hundred students 
here, and the college is licensed to give degrees in arts as well as 
divinity ; at least so the officer of the church said, as he showed us 
the place through the bars of the sacristy-windows, in which apart- 
ment may be seen sundry crosses, a pastoral letter of Doctor Doyle, 
and a number of ecclesiastical vestments formed of laces, poplins, 
and velvets, handsomely laced with gold. There is a convent by 
the side of the cathedral, and, of course, a parcel of beggars all 
about, and indeed all over the town, profuse in their prayers and 
invocations of the Lord, and whining flatteries of the persons whom 
they address. One wretched old tottering hag began whining the 
Lord’s Prayer as a proof of her sincerity, and blundered in the very 
midst of it, and left us thoroughly disgusted after the very first 
sentence. 

It was market-day in the town, which is tolerably full of poor- 
looking shops, the streets being thronged with donkey-carts, and 
people eager to barter their small wares. Here and there were 
picture-stalls, with huge hideous-coloured engravings of the Saints ; 
and indeed the objects of barter upon the banks of the clear bright 
river Barrow seemed scarcely to be of more value tlian the articles 
which change hands, as one reads of, in a town of African huts and 


S02 


THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK 


traders on tlie banks of the Qiiorra. Perhaps the very bustle and 
cheerfulness of the people served only, to a Londoner’s eyes, to make 
it look the more miserable. It seems as if they had no right to 
be eager about such a parcel of wretched rags and trifles as were 
exposed to sale. 

There are some old towers of a castle here, looking finely from 
the river ; and near the town is a grand modern residence belonging 
to Colonel Bruen, with an oak-park on one side of the road, and a 
deer-park on the other. These retainers of the Colonel’s lay in their 
rushy-green enclosures, in great numbers and seemingly in flourishing 
condition. 

The road from Carlow to Leighlin Bridge is exceedingly beauti- 
ful : noble purple hills rising on either side, and the broad silver 
Barrow flowing through rich meadows of that astonishing verdure 
which is only to be seen in this country. Here and there was 
a country-house, or a tall mill by a stream-side ; but the latter 
buildings were for the most part empty, the gaunt windows gaping 
without glass, and their great wheels idle. Leighlin Bridge, lying 
up and down a hill by the river, contains a considerable number of 
pompous-looking warehouses, that looked for the most part to be 
doing no more business than the mills on the Carlow road, but 
stood by the roadside staring at tlie coach as it were, and bask- 
ing in the sun, swaggering, idle, insolvent, and out-at-elbows. 
There are one or two very pretty, modest, comfortable -looking 
country-places about Leighlin Bridge, and on the road thence to a 
miserable village called the Royal Oak, a beggarly sort of bustling 
place. 

Here stands a dilapidated hotel and posting-house : and indeed 
on every road, as yet, I have been astonished at the great movement 
and stir ; — the old coaches being invariably crammed, cars jingling 
about equally full, and no want of gentlemen’s carriages to exercise 
the horses of the “ Royal Oak ” and similar establishments. In 
the time of the rebellion, the landlord of this “ Royal Oak,” a great 
character in those parts, was a fierce United Irishman. One day it 
happened that Sir John Anderson came to the inn, and was eager 
for horses on. The landlord, who knew Sir John to be a Tory, 
vowed and swore he had no horses ; that the judges had the last 
going to Kilkenny ; that the yeomanry had carried off the best of 
them ; that he could not give a horse for love or money. “ Poor 
Lord Edward!” said Sir John, sinking down in a chair, and clasping 
his hands, “ my poor dear misguided friend, and must you die for 
the loss of a few hours and the Avant of a pair of horses 'i ” 

“Lord What?" says the landlord. 

“ Lord Edward Fitzgerald,” replied Sir John. “ The Govern' 


IRISH MENDICANCY 


303 


ment has seized his papers, and got scent of his hiding-place. If I 
can’t get to him before two hours, Sirr will have him.” 

“My dear Sir John,” cried the landlord, “it’s not two horses 
but it’s eight I’ll give you, and may the judges go hang for me ! 
Here, Larry ! Tim ! First and second pair for Sir John Anderson : 
and long life to you. Sir John, and the Lord reward you for your 
good deed this day.” 

Sir John, my informant told me, had invented this predicament 
of Lord Edward’s in order to get the horses ; and by way of corrobo- 
rating the whole story, pointed out an old chaise which stood at the 
inn-door with its window broken, a great crevice in the panel, some 
little wretches crawling underneath the wheels, and two huge black- 
guards lolling against the pole. “And that,” says he, “is no 
doubt the very postchaise Sir John Anderson had.” It certainly 
looked ancient enough. 

Of course, as we stopped for a moment in the place, troops 
of slatternly ruffianly-looking fellows assembled round the carriage, 
dirty heads peeped out of all the dirty windows, beggars came 
forward with a joke and a prayer, and troops of children raised 
their shouts and halloos. I confess, with regard to the beggars, 
that I have never yet had the slightest sentiment of compassion for 
the very oldest or dirtiest of them, or been inclined to give them a 
penny : they come crawling round you with lying prayers and loath- 
some compliments, that make the stomach turn ; they do not even 
disguise that they are lies ; for, refuse them, and the wretches turn 
off with a laugh and a joke, a miserable grinning cynicism that 
creates distrust and indifference, and must be, one would think, 
the very best way to close the purse, not to open it, for objects 
so unworthy. 

How do all these people live ? one can’t help wondering ; — these 
multifarious vagabonds, without work or workhouse, or means of 
subsistence'? The Irish Poor Law Report says that there are 
twelve hundred thousand people in Ireland — a sixth of the popula- 
tion — who have no means of livelihood but charity, and whom the 
State, or individual members of it, must maintain. How can the 
State support such an enormous burden; or the twelve hundred 
thousand be supported? What a strange history it would be, 
could one but get it true, — that of the manner in which a score of 
these beggars have maintained themselves for a fortnight past ! 

Soon after quitting the “ Royal Oak ” our road branches off to 
the hospitable house where our party, consisting of a dozen persons, 
was to be housed and fed for the night. Fancy the look which an 
English gentleman of moderate means would assume, at being called 
on to receive such a company ! A pretty road of a couple of miles, 


304 . 


THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK 


thickly grown with ash and oak trees, under which the hats of 

coach-passengers suffered some danger, leads to the house of D . 

A young son of the house, on a white pony, was on the look-out, 
and great cheering and shouting took place among the young people 
as we came in sight. 

Trotting away by the carriage-side, he brouglit us through a 
gate with a pretty avenue of trees leading to the pleasure-grounds 
of the house — a handsome building commanding noble views of 
river, mountains, and plantations. Our entertainer only rents the 
j)lace ; so I may say, without any imputation against him, that the 
house was by no means so handsome within as without, — not that 
the want of finish in the interior made our party the less merry, or 
the host’s entertainment less hearty and cordial. 

The gentleman who built and owns the house, like many other 
proj)rietors in Ireland, found his mansion too expensive for his 
means and has relinquished it. I asked what his income might be, 
and no wonder that he was compelled to resign his house ; which a 
man with four times the income in England would scarcely venture 
to inhabit. There were numerous sitting-rooms below ; a large suite 
of rooms above, in which our large party, with their servants, dis- 
appeared without any seeming inconvenience, and which already 
accommodated a family of at least a dozen persons, and a numerous 
train of domestics. There was a great courtyard surrounded by 
capital offices, with stabling and coach-houses sufficient for a half- 
dozen of country gentlemen. An English squire of ten thousand a 
year might live in such a place — the original owner, I am told, had 
not many more hundreds. 

Our host has wisely turned the chief part of the pleasure-ground 
round the house into a farm ; nor did the land look a bit the worse, 
as I thought, for having rich crops of potatoes growing in place of 
grass, and fine plots of waving wheat and barley. The care, skill, 
and neatness everywhere exhibited, and the immense luxuriance of 
the crops, could not fail to strike even a cockney ; and one of our 
party, a very well-known practical farmer, told me that there was at 
least five hundred pounds’ worth of produce upon the little estate 
of some sixty acres, of which only five-and- twenty were under the 
plough. 

As at H town, on the previous day, several men and 

women appeared sauntering in the grounds, and as the master 
came up, asked for work, or sixpence, or told a story of want. 
There are lodge-gates at both ends of the demesne ; but it appears 
the good-natured practice of the country admits a beggar as well 
as any other visitor. To a couple our landlord gave money, to 
another a little job of work ; another he sent roughly out of the 


IRISH HANGERS-ON 


305 


premises : and I could judge thus what a continual tax upon the 
Irish gentleman these travelling paupers must be, of whom his 
ground is never free. 

There, loitering about the stables and outhouses, were several 
people who seemed to liave acquired a sort of riglit to be tliere : 
women and children who had a claim upon the buttermilk ; men 
who did an odd job now and then ; loose hangers-on of the family : 
and in the lodging-houses and inns I have entered, the same sort of 
ragged vassals are to be found ; in a house however poor, you are 
sure to see some poorer dependant who is a stranger, taking a meal 
of i)otatoes in the kitchen ; a Tim or Mike loitering hard by, ready 
to run on a message, or carry a bag. This is written, for instance, 
at a lodging over a shop at Cork. There sits in the shop a poor 
old fellow quite past work, but who totters up and down stairs to 
the lodgers, and does what little he can for his easily-won bread. 
There is another fellow outside who is sure to make his bow to 
anybody issuing from the lodging, and ask if his honour wants an 
errand done? Neither class of such dependants exists with us. 
What housekeeper in London is there will feed an old man of 
seventy that’s good for nothing, or encourage such a disreputable 
hanger-on as yonder shuffling smiling cad ? 

Nor did Mr. M ’s “ irregulars ” disappear with the day ; for 

when, after a great deal of merriment, and kind happy dancing 
and romping of young people, the fineness of the night suggested 
the propriety of smoking a certain cigar (it is never more acceptable 
than at that season), the young squire voted that we should adjourn 
to the stables for the purpose, where accordingly the cigars were 
discussed. There were still the inevitable half-dozen hangers-on : 
one came grinning with a lantern, all nature being in universal 
blackness except his grinning face ; another ran obsequiously to 
the stables to show a favourite mare — I think it was a mare — 
though it may have been a mule, and your humble servant not 
much the wiser. The cloths were taken off ; the fellows with the 
candles crowded about; and the young squire bade me admire 
the beauty of her fore-leg, which I did with the greatest possible 
gravity. “ Did you ever see such a fore-leg as that in your life ? ” 
says the young squire, and further discoursed upon the horse’s 
points, the amateur grooms joining in chorus. 

There was another young squire of our party, a pleasant gentle- 
manlike young fellow, who danced as prettily as any Frenchman, 
and who had ridden over from a neighbouring house : as I went 

to bed, the two lads were arguing whether young Squire B 

should go home or stay at D that night. There was a bed 

for him — there was a bed for everybody, it seemed, and a kind 


306 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK 

welcome too. How different was all this to the ways of a severe 
English liouse. 

Next morning the whole of oiir merry party assembled round a 
long jovial breakfast-table, stored with all sorts of good things ; and 
the biggest and jovialest man of all, who had just come in fresh 
from a walk in the fields, and vowed that he was as hungry as a 
hunter, and was cutting some slices out of an inviting ham on the 
side-table, suddenly let fall his knife and fork with dismay. “ Sure, 
John, don’t you know it’s Friday ? ” cried a lady from the table ; 
and back John came with a most lugubrious cpieer look on his jolly 
face, and fell to work upon bread-and-butter, as resigned as possible, 
amidst no small laughter, as may be well imagined. On this I was 
bound, as a Protestant, to eat a large slice of pork, and discharged 
that duty nobly, and with much self-sacrifice. 

The famous “ drag ” which had brought us so far, seemed to be 
as hospitable and elastic as the house which we now left, for the 
coach accommodated, inside and out, a considerable party from the 
house ; and we took our road leisurely, in a cloudless scorching day, 
towards Waterford. The first place we passed through was the 
little town of Cowran, near which is a grand well-ordered park, 
belonging to Lord Clifden, and where his mother resides, with whose 
beautiful face, in Lawrence’s pictures, every reader must be familiar. 
The kind English lady has done the greatest good in the neighbour- 
hood, it is said, and the little town bears marks of her beneficence, 
in its neatness, prettiness, and order. Close by the church there 
are the ruins of a fine old abbey here, and a still finer one a few 
miles on, at Thomastown, most picturesquely situated amidst trees 
and meadow, on the river Nore. The place within, however, is 
dirty and ruinous — the same wretched suburbs, the same squalid 
congregation of beggarly loungers, that are to be seen elsewhere. 
The monastic ruin is very fine, and the road hence to Thomastown 
rich with varied cultivation and beautiful verdure, pretty gentlemen’s 
mansions shining among the trees on either side of the way. There 
was one place along this rich tract that looked very strange and 
ghastly — a huge old pair of gate pillars, flanked by a ruinous lodge, 
and a wide road winding for a mile up a hill. There had been a 
park once, but all the trees were gone ; thistles were growing in the 
yellow sickly land, and rank thin grass on the road. Far away you 
saw in this desolate tract a. ruin of a house : many a butt of claret 
has been emptied there, no doubt, and many a merry party come 
out with hound and horn. But what strikes the Englishman with 
wonder is not so much, perhaps, that an owner of the place should 
have been ruined and a spendthrift, as that the land should lie there 
useless ever since. If one is not successful with us another man 


BALLYHALE 


307 


will be, or another will try, at least. Here lies useless a great 
capital of hundreds of acres of land ; barren, where the commonest 
effort might make it productive, and looking as if for a quarter of 
a century past no soul ever looked or cared for it. You might 
travel five hundred miles through England and not see such a 
spectacle. 

A short distance from Thomastown is another abbey ; and 
presently, after passing through the village of Knocktopher, we came 
to a posting-place called Ballyhale, of the moral aspect of which the 
following sketch taken in the place will give a notion. 



A dirty, old, contented, decrepit idler was lolling in the sun at 
a shop-door, and hundreds of the population of the dirty, old, 
decrepit, contented place were employed in the like way. A 
dozen of boys were playing at pitch -and- toss ; other male and female 
beggars were sitting on a wall looking into a stream ; scores of 
ragamuffins, of course, round the carriage; and beggars galore at 
the door of the little alehouse or hotel. A gentleman’s carriage 
changed horses as we were baiting here. It was a rich sight to 
see the cattle, and the way of starting them : “ Halloo ! Yoop 

hoop ! ” a dozen ragged ostlers and amateurs running by the 

side of the miserable old horses, the postillion shrieking, yelling, and 




308 


THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK 


belabouring them with his whip. Down goes one horse among the 
new-laid stones ; the postillion has him up with a cut of the whip 
and a curse, and takes advantage of the start caused by the stumble 
to get the brute into a gallop, and to go down the hill. “ I know 
it for a fact,” a gentleman of our party says, “ that no horses ever 
got out of Bally hale without an accident of some kind.” 

“ Will your honour like to come and see a big pig 1 ” here asked 
a man of the above gentleman, well known as a great farmer and 
breeder. We all went to see the big pig, not very fat as yet, but, 
upon my word, it is as big as a pony. The country round is, it 
appears, famous for the breeding of such, especially a district called 
the Welsh mountains, through which we had to pass on our road to 
Waterford. 

This is a curious country to see, and has curious inhabitants : 
for twenty miles there is no gentleman’s house : gentlemen dare not 
live there. The place was originally tenanted by a clan of Welshes ; 
hence its name ; and they maintain themselves in their occupancy 
of the farms in Tipperary fashion, by simply putting a ball into the 
body of any man who would come to take a farm over any one of 
them. Some of the crops in the fields of the Welsh country seemed 
very good, and the fields well tilled ; but it is common to see, by 
the side of one field that is well cultivated, another that is absolutely 
barren ; and the whole tract is extremely wretched. Appropriate 
histories and reminiscences accompany the traveller : at a chapel 
near Mullinavat is the spot where sixteen policemen were murdered 
in the tithe-campaign ; farther on you come to a limekiln, where the 
guard of a mail-coach was seized and roasted alive. I saw here the 
first hedge-school I have seen : a crowd of half-savage-looking lads 
and girls looked up from their studies in the ditch, their college or 
lecture-room being in a mud cabin hard by. 

And likewise, in the midst of this wild tract, a fellow met us 
who was trudging the road with a fish-basket over his shoulder, and 
who stopped the coach, hailing two of the gentlemen in it by name, 
both of whom seemed to be much amused by his humour. He was 
a handsome rogue, a poacher, or salmon-taker, by profession, and 
presently poured out such a flood of oaths, and made such a mon- 
strous display of grinning wit and blackguardism, as I have never 
heard equalled by the best Billingsgate practitioner, and as it would 
be more than useless to attempt to describe. Blessings, jokes, and 
curses trolled off the rascal’s lips with a volubility which caused his 
Irish audience to shout with laughter, but which were quite beyond 
a cockney. It was a humour so purely national as to be understood 
by none but natives, I should think. I recollect the same feeling 
of perplexity while sitting, the only Englishman, in a company of 


THE WELSH COUNTRY 


309 


jocular Scotchmen. They bandied about puns, jokes, imitations, 
and applauded with shrieks of laughter what, I confess, appeared 
to me the most abominable dulness ; nor was the salmon-taker’s 
jocularity any better. I think it rather served to frighten than to 
amuse ; and I am not sure but that I looked out for a band of 
jocular cut-throats of this sort to come up at a given guffaw, and 
playfully rob us all round. However, he went away quite peace- 
ably, calling down for the party the benediction of a great number 
of saints, who must have been somewhat ashamed to be addressed 
by such a rascal. 

Presently we caught sight of the valley through which the Suir 
flows, and descended the hill towards it, and went over the thunder- 
ing old wooden bridge to Waterford. 


CHAPTER IV 

FROM WATERFORD TO CORK 


T he view of the town from the bridge and the heights above it 
is very imposing; as is the river both ways. Very large 
vessels sail up almost to the doors of the houses, and the 
quays are flanked by tall red warehouses, that look at a little distance 
as if a world of business might be doing within them. But as you 
get into the place, not a soul is there to greet you except the usual 
society of beggars, and a sailor or two, or a green-coated policeman 
sauntering down the broad pavement. We drove up to the “ Coach 
Inn,” a huge, handsome, dirty building, of which the discomforts 
have been pathetically described elsewhere. The landlord is a gentle- 
man and considerable horse-proprietor, and though a perfectly well- 
bred, active, and intelligent man, far too much of a gentleman to 
play the host well : at least as an Englishman understands that 
character. 

Opposite the town is a tower of questionable antiquity and un- 
deniable ugliness ; for though tlie inscription says it was built in the 
year one thousand and something, the same document adds that it 
was rebuilt in 1819 — to either of which dates the traveller is thus 
welcomed. The quays stretch for a considerable distance along tlie 
river, poor patched- windowed mouldy-looking shops forming the base- 
ment-story of most of the houses. We went into one, a jeweller’s, 
to make a purchase — it might have been of a gold watch for any- 
thing the owner knew ; but he was talking with a friend in his back- 
parlour, gave us a look as we entered, allowed us to stand some 
minutes in the empty shop, and at length to walk out without being 
served. In another shop a boy was lolling behind a counter, but 
could not say whether the articles we wanted were to be had ; turned 
out a heap of drawers, and could not find them ; and finally went 
for the master, who could not come. True commercial independence, 
and an easy way enough of life. 

In one of the streets leading from the quay is a large dingy 
Catholic chapel, of some pretensions within ; but, as usual, there had 
been a failure for want of money, and tlie front of the chapel was 
unfinished, presenting the butt-end of a portico, and walls on which 


THE COURT HOUSE 


311 


the stone coating was to be laid. But a mncli finer ornament to the 
church than any of the questionable gewgaws which adorned the 
ceiling was the piety, stern, simple, and unaftected, of the people 
within. Their whole soul seemed to be in their prayers, as rich and 
poor knelt indifferently on the flags. There is of course an episcopal 
cathedral, well and neatly kept, and a handsome Bishop’s palace : 
near it w^as a convent of nuns, and a little chapel-bell clinking 
melodiously. I was prepared to fancy something romantic of the 
place ; but as we passed the convent gate, a shoeless slattern 
of a maid opened the door — the most dirty and unpoetical of 
housemaids. 

Assizes were held in the town, and we ascended to the court- 
house through a steep street, a sort of rag-fair, but more villainous 
and miserable than any rag-fair in St. Giles’s : the houses and stock 
of the Seven Dials look as if they belonged to caj)italists when com- 
pared with the scarecrow wretchedness of the goods here hung out 
for sale. Who wanted to buy such things 'I I wondered. One 
would have thought that the most part of the articles had passed the 
possibility of barter for money, even out of the reach of the half- 
farthings coined of late. All the street was lined with wretched 
hucksters and their merchandise of gooseberries, green apples, 
children’s dirty cakes, cheap crockeries, brushes, and tinware ; among 
which objects the people were swarming about busily. 

Before the court is a wide street, where a similar market was 
held, with a vast number of donkey-carts urged hither and thither, 
and great shrieking, chattering, and bustle. It is five hundred 
years ago since a poet who accompanied Richard II. in his voyage 
liither spoke of “Watreforde ou moult vilaine et orde y sont la 
gente.” They don’t seem to be much changed now, but remain 
faithful to their ancient habits. 

About the court-house swarms of beggars of course were col- 
lected, varied by personages of a better sort : grey-coated farmers, 
and women with their picturesque blue cloaks, who had trudged in 
from the country probably. The court-house is as beggarly and 
ruinous as the rest of the neighbourhood; smart-looking policemen 
kept order about it, and looked very hard at me as I ventured to 
take a sketch. 

The figures as I saw them were thus disposed. The man in 
the dock, the policeman seated easily above him, the woman looking 
down from a gallery. The man was accused of stealing a sack of 
wool, and, having no counsel, made for himself as adroit a defence 
as any one of the counsellors (they are without robes or wigs here, 
by the way) could have made for him. He had been seen examining 
a certain sack of wool in a coffee-shop at Dungarvan, and next day 


312 


THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK 


was caught sight of in Waterford Market, standing under an arch- 
way from the rain, with the sack by his side. 

“Wasn’t there twenty other people under the arch?” said he 
to a witness, a noble-looking beautiful girl — the girl was obliged 



to own there were. “Did you see me touch the wool, or stand 
nearer to it than a dozen of the dacent people there?” and the 
girl confessed she had not. “ And this it is, my Lord,” says he to 
the bench ; “ they attack me because I am poor and ragged, but 
they never think of charging the crime on a rich farmer.” 



THE COURT HOUSE 


313 


But alas for the defence ! another witness saw the prisoner with 
his legs round the sack, and being about to charge him with tlie 
theft, the prisoner fled into the arms of a policeman, to whom his 
first words were, “I know nothing about the sack.” So, as the 
sack had been stolen, as he had been seen handling it four minutes 
before it was stolen, and holding it for sale the day after, it was 
concluded that Patrick Malony had stolen the sack, and he was 
accommodated with eighteen months accordingly. 

In another case we had a woman and her child on the table; 
and others followed, in the judgment of which it was impossible 
not to admire the extreme leniency, acuteness, and sensibility of the 
judge presiding. Chief Justice Pennefather : — the man against whom 
all the Liberals in Ireland, and every one else who has read his 
charge too, must be angry, for the ferocity of his charge against a 
Belfast newspaper editor. It seems as if no parties here will be 
dispassionate when tliey get to a party question, and that natural 
kindness has no claim when Whig and Tory come into collision. 

The witness is here placed on a table instead of a witness-box ; 
nor was there much further peculiarity to remark, except in the 
dirt of the court, the absence of the barristerial wig and gown, and 
the great coolness with wliicli a fellow who seemed a sort of clerk, 
usher, and Irish interpreter to the court, recommended a prisoner, 
who was making rather a long defence, to be quiet. I asked him 
why the man might not have his say. “ Sure,” says he, “ he’s 
said all he has to say,, and there’s no use in any more.” But there 
was no use in attempting to convince Mr. Usher that the prisoner was 
the best judge on this point : in fact the poor devil shut his mouth 
at the admonition, and was found guilty with perfect justice. 

A considerable poor-house has been erected at Waterford, but 
the beggars of the place as yet prefer their liberty, and less certain 
means of gaining support. We asked one who was calling down 
all the blessings of all the saints and angels upon us, and telling a 
most piteous tale of poverty, why she did not go to the poor-house. 
The woman’s look at once changed from a sentimental whine to a 
grin. “Dey owe two hundred pounds at dat house,” said she, 
“and faith, an honest woman can’t go dere.” With which wonder- 
ful reason ought not the most squeamish to be content 1 


After describing, as accurately as words may, the features of a 
landscape, and stating that such a mountain was to the left, and 
such a river or town to the right, and putting down the situations 
and names of the villages, and the bearings of the roads, it has no 


314 


THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK 


doubt struck the reader of books of travels that the writer has 
not given him the slightest idea of the country, and that he would 
have been just as wise without perusing the letterpress landscape 
through which he has toiled. It will be as well then, under such 
circumstances, to spare the public any lengthened description of the 
road from Waterford to Dungarvan ; which w'as the road we took, 
followed by benedictions delivered gratis from the beggarhood of the 
former city. Not very far from it you see the dark plantations of 
the magnificent domain of Curraghmore, and pass through a country 
blue, hilly, and bare, except where gentlemen’s seats appear with 
their ornaments of wood. Presently, after leaving Waterford, we 
came to a certain town called Kilmacthomas, of which all the 
information I have to give is, that it is situated upon a hill and 
river, and that you may change horses there. The road was 
covered with carts of seaweed, which the people were bringing for 
manure from the shore some four miles distant ; and beyond Kil- 
macthomas we beheld the Cummeragh Mountains, “often named 
in maps the Nennavoulagh,” either of which names the reader may 
select at pleasure. 

Thence we came to “ Cushcam,” at which village be it known 
that the turnpike-man kept the drag a very long time waiting. “ I 
think the fellow must be writing a book,” said the coachman, with 
a most severe look of drollery at a cockney tourist, who tried, under 
the circumstances, to laugh, and not to blush. I wish I could 
relate or remember half the mad jokes that flew about among the 
jolly Irish crew on the top of the coach, and which would have 
made a journey through the Desert jovial. When the ’pike-man 
had finished his composition (that of a turnpike-ticket, which he had 
to fiU), we drove on to Dungarva,n ; the two parts of which town, 
separated by the river Colligan, have been joined by a causeway 
three hundred yards along, and a bridge erected at an enormous 
outlay by the Duke of Devonshire. In former times, before his 
Grace spent his eighty thousand pounds upon the causeway, this 
wide estuary was called “Dungarvan Prospect,” because the ladies 
of the country, walking over the river at low water, took off their 
shoes and stockings (such as had them), and tucking up their 
clothes, exhibited, — what I have never seen, and cannot therefore 
be expected to describe. A large and handsome Catholic chapel, a 
square with some pretensions to regularity of building, a very neat 
and comfortable inn, and beggars and idlers still more numerous than 
at Waterford, were what we had leisure to remark in half-an-hour’s 
stroll through the* town. 

Near the prettily situated village of Cappoquin is the Trappist 
House of Mount Meilleraie, of which we could only see the pin- 


TRAPPIST AND QUAKER MONKS 315 

nacles. The brethren were presented some years since with a 
barren mountain, whicli they have cultivated most successfully. 
Tliey have among themselves workmen to supply all their frugal 
wants : ghostly tailors and shoemakers, spiritual gardeners and 
bakers, working in silence, and serving Heaven after their way. 
If this reverend community, for fear of the opportunity of sinful 
talk, choose to hold their tongues, the next thing will be to cut 
them out altogether, and so render the danger impossible : if, being 
men of education and intelligence, they incline to turn butchers 
and cobblers, and smother their intellects by base and hard menial 
labour, who knows but one day a sect may be more pious still, 
and rejecting even butchery and bakery, as savouring too much 
of worldly convenience and pride, take to a wild-beast life at once 1 
Let us concede that suffering, and mental and bodily debasement, 
are the things most agreeable to Heaven, and there is no knowing 
where such piety may stop. I was very glad we had not time to 
see the grovelling place ; and as for seeing shoes made or fields 
tilled by reverend amateurs, we can find cobblers and ploughboys 
to do the work better. 

By the way, the Quakers have set up in Ireland a sort of 
monkery of their own. Not far from Carlow we met a couple of 
cars drawn by white horses, and holding white Quakers and 
Quakeresses, in white hats, clothes, shoes, with wild maniacal- 
looking faces, bumping along the road. Let us hope that we may 
soon get a community of Fakeers and howling Dervishes into the 
country. It would be a refreshing thing to see such ghostly men 
in one’s travels, standing at the corners of roads and praising the 
Lord by standing on one leg, or cutting and hacking themselves 
with knives like the prophets of Baal. Is it not as pious for a 
man to deprive himself of his leg as of his tongue, and to disfigure 
his body with the gashes of a knife, as with the hideous white 
raiment of the illuminated Quakers ? 

While these reflections were going on, the beautiful Blackwater 
river suddenly opened before us, and driving along it for three 
miles through some of the most beautiful rich country ever seen, 
we came to Lismore. Nothing certainly can be more magnificent 
than this drive. Parks and rocks covered with the grandest foliage ; 
rich handsome seats of gentlemen in the midst of fair lawns and 
beautiful bright plantations and shrubberies; and at the end, the 
graceful spire of Lismore church, the prettiest I have seen in, or, 
I think, out of Ireland. Nor in any country that I have visited 
have I seen a view more noble — it is too rich and peaceful to be 
what is called romantic, but lofty, large, and generous, if the term 
may be used ; the river and banks as fine as the Rhine ; the castle 


316 


THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK 


not as large, but as noble and picturesque as Warwick. As you 
pass the bridge, the banks stretch away on either side in amazing 
verdure, and the castle-walks remind one somewhat of the dear old 
terrace of St. Germains, with its groves, and long grave avenues 
of trees. 

The salmon-fishery of the Blackwater is let, as I hear, for a 
thousand a year. In the evening, however, we saw some gentle- 
men who are likely to curtail the profits of the farmer of the fishery 
— a company of ragged boys, to wit — whose occupation, it appears, 
is to poach. These young fellows were all lolling over the bridge, 
as the moon rose rather mistily, and pretended to be deeply en- 
amoured of the view of the river. They answered the questions of 
one of our party with the utmost innocence and openness, and one 
would have supposed the lads were so many Arcadians, but for the 
arrival of an old woman, who suddenly coming up among them 
poured out, upon one and all, a volley of curses, both deep and 
loud, saying that perdition would be their portion, and calling them 
“ shchamers ” at least a hundred times. Much to my wonder, the 
young men did not reply to the voluble old lady for some time, 
who then told us the cause of her anger. She had a son, — “ Look 
at him there, the villain.” The lad was standing, looking very 
unhappy. “His father, that’s now dead, paid a fistful of money 
to bind him ’prentice at Dungarvan : but these shchamers followed 
him there; made him break his indentures, and go poaching and 
thieving and shchaming with them.” The poor old woman shook 
her hands in the air, and shouted at the top of her deep voice; 
there was something very touching in her grotesque sorrow; nor 
did the lads make light of it at all, contenting themselves with 
a surly growl, or an oath, if directly appealed to by the poor 
creature. 

So, cursing and raging, the woman went away. The son, a lad 
of fourteen, evidently the fag of the big bullies round about him, 
stood dismally away from them, his head sunk down. I went up 
and asked him, “ Was that his mother 1 ” He said, “ Yes.” “ Was 
she good and kind to him when he was at home 1 ” He said, “ Oh 
yes.” “Why not come back to her?” I asked him; but he said 
“he couldn’t.” Whereupon I took his arm, and tried to lead him 
away by main force ; but he said, “ Thank you, sir, but I can’t go 
back,” and released his arm. We stood on the bridge some minutes 
longer, looking at the view ; but the boy, thougli he kept away from 
liis comrades, would not come. I wonder what they have done 
together, that the poor boy is past going home ? The place seemed 
to be so quiet and beautiful, and far away from London, that I 
thought crime couldn’t have reached it ; and yet here it lurks some- 


THE GRAVEYARD AT LISMORE 


317 


where among six boys of sixteen, each with a stain in his heart, and 
some black history to tell. The poor widow’s yonder was the only 
family about which I had a chance of knowing anything in this 
remote place ; nay, in all Ireland : and God help us, hers was a 
sad lot ! — A husband gone dead, — an only child gone to ruin. It is 
awful to think that there are eight millions of stories to be told in 
this island. Seven million nine hundred and ninety-nine thousand 
nine hundred and ninety-eight more lives that I, and all brother 
cockneys, know nothing about. Well, please God, they are not all 
like this. 

That day, I heard another history. A little old disreputable 
man in tatters, with a huge steeple of a hat, came shambling down 
the street, one among the five hundred blackguards there. A fellow 
standing under the “ Sun ” portico (a sort of swaggering, chattering, 
cringing touter^ and master of ceremonies to the gutter) told us some- 
thing with regard to the old disreputable man. His son had been 
hanged the day before at Clonmel, for one of the Tipperary murders. 
That blackguard in our eyes instantly looked quite different from all 
other blackguards : I saw him gesticulating at the corner of a street, 
and watched him with wonderful interest. 

The church with the handsome spire, that looks so graceful 
among the trees, is a cathedral church, and one of the neatest-kept 
and prettiest edifices I have seen in Ireland. In the old graveyard 
Protestants and Catholics lie together — that is, not together; for 
each has a side of the ground where they sleep, and, so occupied, do 
not quarrel. The sun was shining down upon the brilliant grass — 
and I don’t think the shadows of the Protestant graves were any 
longer or shorter than those of the Catholics. Is it the right or the 
left side of the graveyard which is nearest heaven I wonder ? Look, 
the sun shines upon both alike, “ and the blue sky bends over all.” 

Raleigh’s house is approached by a grave old avenue, and well- 
kept wall, such as is rare in this country ; and the court of the 
castle within has a solid, comfortable, quiet look, equally rare. It 
is like one of our colleges at Oxford : there is a side of the quad- 
rangle with pretty ivy-covered gables ; another part of the square 
is more modern ; and by the main body of the castle is a small 
chapel exceedingly picturesque. The interior is neat and in ex- 
cellent order ; but it was unluckily done up some thirty years ago 
(as I imagine from the style), before our architects had learned 
Gothic, and all the ornamental work is consequently quite ugly and 
out of keeping. The church has probably been arranged by the 
same hand. In the castle are some plainly-furnished chambers, one 
or two good pictures, and a couple of oriel windows, the views from 
which up and down the river are exceedingly lovely. You hear 


318 


THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK 


praises of the Duke of Devonshire as a landlord wherever you go 
among his vast estates : it is a pity that, with such a noble resi- 
dence as this, and with such a w’onderful country round about it, his 
Grace should not inhabit it more. 

Of the road from Lismore to Fermoy it does not behove me to 
say much, for a pelting rain came on very soon after we quitted the 
former place, and accompanied us almost without ceasing to Fermoy. 
Here we had a glimpse of a bridge across the Blackwater, which we 
had skirted in our journey from Lismore. Now enveloped in mist 
and cloud, now spanned by a rainbow, at another time basking in 
sunshine. Nature attired the charming prospect for us in a score of 
different ways ; and it appeared before us like a coquettish beauty 
who was trying what dress in her wardrobe might most become her. 
At Fermoy we saw a vast barrack, and an overgrown inn, where, 
however, good fare was provided; and thence hastening came by 
Rathcormack, and Watergrass Hill, famous for the residence of 
Father Prout, whom my friend the Reverend Francis Sylvester has 
made immortal ; from which descending we arrived at the beautiful 
wooded village of Glanmire, with its mills, and steeples, and streams, 
and neat school-houses, and pleasant country residences. This brings 
us down upon the superb stream which leads from the sea to Cork. 

The view for three miles on both sides is magnificently beautiful. 
Fine gardens, and parks, and villas cover the shore on each bank ; 
the river is full of brisk craft moving to the city or out to sea ; and 
the city finely ends the view, rising upon two hills on either side of 
the stream. I do not know a town to which there is an entrance 
more beautiful, commodious, and stately. 

Passing by numberless handsome lodges, and, nearer the city, 
many terraces in neat order, th^ road conducts us near a large tract 
of some hundred acres which have been reclaimed from the sea, and 
are destined to form a park and pleasure-ground for the citizens of 
Cork. In the river, and up to the bridge, some hundreds of ships 
were lying ; and a fleet of steamboats opposite the handsome house 
of the Saint George’s Steam-Packet Company. A church stands 
prettily on the hill above it, surrounded by a number of new habita- 
tions very neat and white. On the road is a handsome Roman 
Catholic chapel, or a chapel which will be handsome so soon as the 
necessary funds are raised to complete it. But, as at Waterford, 
the chapel has been commenced, and the money has failed, and the 
fine portico which is to decorate it one day, as yet only exists on 
the architect’s paper. Saint Patrick’s Bridge, over which we pass, 
is a pretty building; and Patrick Street, the main street of the 
town, has an air of business and cheerfulness, and looks densely 
thronged. 


ARRIVAL AT CORK 


319 


As the carriage drove up to those neat, comfortable, and ex- 
tensive lodgings which Mrs. MacO’Boy has to let, a magnificent 
mob was formed round the vehicle, and we liad an opportunity of 
at once making acquaintance with some of the dirtiest rascally faces 
that all Ireland presents. Besides these professional rogues and 
beggars, who make a point to attend on all vehicles, e'verybody else 
seemed to stop too, to see that wonder, a coach and four horses. 
Peojde issued from their shops, heads appeared at windows. I 
have seen the Queen pass in state in London, and not bring together 
a crowd near so great as that which assembled in the busiest street 
of the second city of the kingdom, just to look at a green coach and 
four bay-horses. Have they nothing else to do ? — or is it that they 
will do nothing but stare, swagger, and be idle in the streets 'i 


CHAPTER V 

CORK— THE AGRICULTURAL SHOfF— FATHER MATHEfF 


A MAN has no need to be an agriculturist in order to take a 
warm interest in the success of the Irish Agricultural Society, 
and to see what vast good may result from it to the country. 
The National Education scheme — a noble and liberal one, at least 
as far as a stranger can see, which might have united the Irish 
people, and brought peace into this most distracted of all countries 
— failed unhappily of one of its greatest ends. The Protestant 
clergy have always treated the plan with bitter hostility : and I do 
believe, in withdrawing from it, have struck the greatest blow to 
themselves as a body, and to their own influence in the country, 
which has been dealt to them for many a year. Rich, charitable, 
pious, well-educated, to be found in every parish in Ireland, had 
they chosen to fraternise vdth the people and the plan, tliey might 
have directed the educational movement ; they might have attained 
tlie influence which is now given over entirely to the priest ; and 
when the present generation, educated in the national-schools, were 
grown up to manhood, they might have had an interest in almost 
every man in Ireland. Are they as pious, and more polished, and 
better educated than their neighbours the priests'? There is no 
doubt of it; and by constant communion with the people, they 
would have gained all the benefits of the comparison, and advanced 
the interests of their religion far more than now they can hope to 
do. Look at the national-school : throughout the country it is 
commonly by the chapel side — it is a Catholic school, directed and 
fostered by the priest ; and as no people are more eager for learning, 
more apt to receive it, or more grateful for kindness than the Irish, 
he gets all the gratitude of the scholars who flock to the school, 
and all the future influence over them, which naturally and justly 
comes to him. Tlie Protestant wants to better the condition of 
these people ; he says that the woes of the country are owing to its 
prevalent religion ; and in order to carry his plans of amelioration 
into effect, he obstinately refuses to hold communion vdth those 
whom he is desirous to convert to what lie believes are sounder 
principles and purer doctrines. The clergyman will reply, that 


IRISH PROTECTION 


321 


points of principle prevented him : with tliis fatal doctrinal objection, 
it is not of course the province of a layman to meddle ; but this is 
clear, that the parson might have had an influence over the country, 
and he would not ; that he might have rendered the Catholic popula- 
tion friendly to him, and he w^ould not ; but, instead, has added one 
cause of estrangement and hostility more to the many which already ex- 
isted against him. This is one of the attempts at union in Ireland, and 
one can’t but think with the deepest regret and sorrow of its failure. 

Mr. O’Connell and his friends set going another scheme for 
advancing the prosperity of the country, — the notable project of 
home manufactures, and of a coalition against foreign importation. 
This was a union certainly, but a union of a different sort to that 
noble and peaceful one which the National Education Board pro- 
posed. It was to punish England, while it pretended to secure the 
independence of Ireland, by shutting out our manufactures from the 
Irish markets; which were one day or other, it was presumed, to 
be filled by native produce. Large bodies of tradesmen and private 
persons in Dublin and other towns in Ireland associated together, 
vowing to purchase no articles of ordinary consumption or usage but 
what were manufactured in the country. This bigoted old-world 
scheme of restriction — not much more liberal than Swing’s crusade 
against the threshing-machines or the coalitions in England against 
machinery — failed, as it deserved to do. For the benefit of a few 
tradesmen, who might find their account in selling at dear rates 
their clumsy and imperfect manufactures, it was found impossible to 
tax a people that are already poor enough ; nor did the party take 
into account the cleverness of the merchants across sea, who were 
by no means disposed to let go their Irish customers. The famous 
Irish frieze uniform which was to distinguish these patriots, and 
which Mr. O’Connell lauded so loudly and so simply, came over 
made at half-price from Leeds and Glasgow, and was retailed as real 
Irish by many worthies who had been first to join the union. You 
may still see shops here and there with their pompous announcement 
of “ Irish Manufactures ” ; but the scheme is long gone to min : it 
could not stand against the vast force of English and Scotch capital 
and machinery, any more than the Ulster spinning-wheel against the 
huge factories and steam-engines which one may see about Belfast. 

The scheme of the Agricultural Society is a much more feasible 
one ; and if, please God, it can be carried out, likely to give not 
only prosperity to the country, but union likewise in a great degree. 
As yet Protestants and Catholics concerned in it have worked well 
together; and it is a blessing to see them meet upon any ground 
w’ithout heartburning and quarrelling. Last year, Mr. Purcell, 
who is well known in Ireland as the principal mail-coach contractor 
5 X 


322 


THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK 


for the country, — who himself employs more workmen in Dublin 
than perhaps any other person there, and has also more land under 
cultivation than most of the gi*eat landed proprietors in the country, 
— wrote a letter to the newspapers, giving his notions of the fallacy 
of the exclusive-dealing system, and pointing out at the same time 
how he considered the country might be benefited — by agricultural 
improvement, namely. He spoke of the neglected state of the 
country, and its amazing natural fertility ; and, for the benefit of 
all, called upon the landlords and landholders to use their interest 
and develop its vast agricultural resources. Manufactures are at 
best but of slow growth, and demand not only time, but capital ; 
meanwhile, until the habits of the people should grow to be such as 
to render manufactures feasible, there was a great neglected treasure, 
lying under their feet, wliich miglit be the source of prosperity to all. 
He pointed out the superior methods of husbandry employed in Scot- 
land and England, and the great results obtained upon soils naturally 
much poorer ; and, taking the Highland Society for an example, the 
establishment of which had done so much for the prosperity of Scot- 
land, he proposed the formation in Ireland of a similar association. 

The letter made an extraordinary sensation throughout the 
country. Noblemen and gentry of all sides took it up; and 
numbers of these wrote to Mr. Purcell, and gave him their cordial 
adhesion to the plan. A meeting was held, and the Society formed : 
subscriptions were set on foot, headed by the Lord Lieutenant 
(Fortescue) and the Duke of Leinster, each with a donation of 
£200 ; and the trustees had soon £5000 at their disposal ; with, 
besides, an annual revenue of £1000. The subscribed capital is 
funded ; and political subjects strictly excluded. The Society has a 
show yearly in one of the principal towns of Ireland : it corresponds 
with the various local agiicultural associations throughout the 
country ; encourages the formation of new ones ; and distributes 
prizes and rewards. It has further in contemplation to establish 
a large Agricultural School for farmers’ sons; and has formed in 
Dublin an Agricultural Bazaar and Museum. 


It was the first meeting of the Society which we were come to 
see at Cork. Will it be able to carry its excellent intentions into 
effect 1 Will the present enthusiasm of its founders and members 
continue ? Will one political party or another get the upper hand 
in it ? One can’t help thinking of these points with some anxiety — 
of the latter especially : as yet, happily, the clergy of either side 
have kept aloof, and the union seems pretty cordial and sincere. 


THE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY 


323 


There are in Cork, as no doubt in every town of Ireland suffi- 
ciently considerable to support a plurality of hotels, some especially 
devoted to the Conservative and Liberal parties. Two dinners 
were to be given a x>'ropo8 of the Agricultural meeting ; and in 
order to conciliate all parties, it was determined that the Tory land- 
lord should find the cheap ten-shilling dinner for one thousand, the 
Whig landlord the genteel guinea dinner for a few select hundreds. 

I wish Mr. Cuff, of the “ Freemasons’ Tavern,” could have been 
at Cork to take a lesson from the latter gentleman : for he w^ould 
have seen that there are means of having not merely enough to eat, 
but enough of the very best, for the sum of a guinea ; that persons 
can have not only wine, but good wine, and if inclined (as some 
topers are on great occasions) to pass to another bottle, — a second, 
a third, or a fifteenth bottle for what I know, is very much at their 
service. It w^as a fine sight to see Mr. MacDowall presiding over 
an ice-well and extracting the bottles of champagne. With wdiat 
calmness he did it ! How the corks popped, and the liquor fizzed, 
and the agriculturists drank the bumpers off ! And how good the 
wine was too — the greatest merit of all ! Mr. MacDowall did credit 
to his liberal politics by his liberal dinner. 

“ Sir,” says a waiter whom I asked for currant-jelly for the 
haunch — (there w^ere a dozen such smoking on various parts of the 
table — think of that, Mr. Cuff!) — ‘‘Sir,” says the waiter, “there’s 
no jelly, but I’ve brought you some very fine lobster -sancefi I 
think this was the most remarkable speech of the evening ; not 
excepting that of my Lord Bernard, wdio, to three hundred gentlemen 
more or less connected with farming, had actually the audacity to 
quote the words of the great agricultural poet of Rome — 

“0 fortunatos nimium sua si,” &c. 

How long are our statesmen in England to continue to back 
their opinions by the Latin grammar % Are the Irish agriculturists 
so very happy, if they did but know it — at least those out of doors 1 
Well, those within w^ere jolly enough. Champagne and claret, 
turbot and haunch, are gifts of \\\q justissima tellus, with which few 
husbandmen wdll be disposed to quarrel : — no more let us quarrel 
either with eloquence after dinner. 

If the Liberal landlord had shown his principles in his dinner, 
the Conservative certainly showed his — by conserving as much profit 
as possible for himself. We sat down one thousand to some two 
hundred and fifty cold joints of meat. Every man was treated with 
a pint of wine, and very bad too, so that there was the less cause to 
grumble because more was not served. Tliose agriculturists who 
had a mind to drink wdiisky-and- water had to pay extra for their 


324 


THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK 


punch. Nay, after shouting in vain for half-an-hour to a waiter for 
some cold water, the unhappy writer could only get it by promising 
a shilling. The sum was paid on delivery of the article ; but as 
everybody round was thirsty too, I got but a glassful from the 
decanter, which only served to make me long for more. The waiter 
(the rascal !) promised more, but never came near us afterwards ; 
he had got his shilling, and so he left us in a hot room, surrounded 
by a thousand hot fellow-creatures, one of them making a dry speech. 
The agriculturists were not on this occasion niniium fortunati. 

To have heard a nobleman, • however, who discoursed to the 
meeting, you would have fancied that we were the luckiest mortals 
under the broiling July sun. He said he could conceive nothing 
more delightful than to see, “ on proper occasions ” — (mind, on 
2yroper occasions !) — “the landlord mixing with his tenantry ; and 
to look around him at a scene like this, and see the condescension 
with which the gentry mingled with the farmers ! ” Prodigious 
condescension truly ! This neat speech seemed to me an oratorio 
slap on the face to about nine hundred and seventy persons present ; 
and being one of the latter, I began to hiss by way of acknowledg- 
ment of the compliment, and hoped that a strong party would have 
destroyed the harmony of the evening, and done likewise. But not 
one hereditary bondsman would join in the compliment — and they 
w^ere quite right too. The old lord who talked about condescension 
is one of the greatest and kindest landlords in Ireland. If he thinks 
he condescends by doing his duty and mixing with men as good as 
himself, the fault lies with the latter. Why are they so ready to go 
down on their knees to my Lord. A man can’t help “condescending ” 
to another who will persist in kissing his shoestrings. They respect 
rank in England — the people seem almost to adore it here. 

As an instance of the intense veneration for lords which dis- 
tinguishes this county of Cork, I may mention what occurred 
afterwards. The members of the Cork Society gave a dinner to 
their guests of the Irish Agricultural Association. The founder of 
the latter, as Lord Downshire stated, was Mr. Purcell : and as it was 
agreed on all hands that the Society so founded was likely to prove 
of the greatest benefit to the country, one might have supposed 
that any compliment paid to it might have been paid to it through 
its founder. Not so. The Society asked the lords to dine, and 
Mr. Purcell to meet the lords. 

After the grand dinner came a grand ball, which was indeed 
one of the gayest and prettiest sights ever seen ; nor was it the 
less agreeable, because the ladies of the city mixed with the ladies 
from the country, and vied with them in grace ^nd beauty. The 
charming gaiety and frankness of tlie Irish ladies have been noted 


IRISH BEAUTY 


325 


and admired by every foreigner who has had the good fortune to 
mingle in their society ; and I hope it is not detracting from the 
merit of the upper classes to say that the lower are not a whit 
less pleasing. I never saw in any country such a general grace 
of manner and ladyhood. In the midst of their gaiety, too, it 
must be remembered that they are the chastest of women, and 
that no country in Europe can boast of such a general purity. 

In regard of the Munster ladies, I had the pleasure to be present 
at two or three evening-parties at Cork, and must say that they 
seem to excel the English ladies not only in wit and vivacity, but 
in the still more important article of the toilette. They are as well 
dressed as Frenchwomen, and incomparably handsomer ; and if ever 
this book reaches a thirtieth edition, and I can find out better words 
to express admiration, they shall be inserted here. Among the 
ladies’ accomplishments, I may mention that I have heard in two 
or three i)rivate families such fine music as is rarely to be met 
with out of a capital. In one house we had a supper and songs 
afterwards, in the old honest fashion. Time was in Ireland when 
the custom was a common one ; but the world grows languid as 
it grows genteel ; and I fancy it requires more than ordinary spirit 
and courage now for a good old gentleman, at the head of his kind 
family table, to strike up a good old family song. 

The delightful old gentleman who sang the song here mentioned 
could not help talking of the Temperance movement with a sort 
of regret, and said that all the fun had gone out of Ireland since 
Father Mathew banished the whisky from it. Indeed, any stranger 
going amongst the people can perceive that they are now anything 
but gay. I have seen a great number of crowds and meetings of 
people in all parts of Irelan?!; and found them all gloomy. There 
is nothing like the merry-making one reads of in the Irish novels. 
Lever and Maxwell must be taken as chroniclers of the old times 
— the pleasant but wrong old times — for which one can’t help 
having an antiquarian fondness. 

On the day we arrived at Cork, and as the passengers descended 
from ‘‘ the drag,” a stout, handsome, lionest-looking man, of some 
two-and-forty years, was passing by, and received a number of bows 
from the crowd around. It was 



with whose face a thousand little print-shop windows had already 
rendered me fiimiliar. He shook hands with the master of the 
carriage very cordially, and just as cordially with the master’s 


326 


THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK 


coachman, a disciple of temperance, as at least half Ireland is at 
present. The day after the famous dinner at MacDowall’s, some 
of us came down rather late, perhaps in consequence of the events 
of the night before (I think it was Lord Bernard’s quotation from 
Virgil, or else the absence of the currant-jelly for the venison, that 
occasioned a slight headache among some of us, and an extreme 
longing for soda-water), — and there was the Apostle of Temperance 
seated at the table drinking tea. Some of us felt a little ashamed 
of ourselves, and did not like to ask somehow for the soda-water 
in such an awful presence as that. Besides, it would have been 
a confession to a Catholic priest, and, as a Protestant, I am 
above it. 

The world likes to know how a great man appears even to 
a valet-de-chambre, and I suppose it is one’s vanity that is flattered 
ill such rare company to find the great man quite as unassuming 
as the very smallest personage present; and so like to other 
mortals, that we would not know him to be a great man at all, 
did we not know his name, and what he had done. There is 
nothing remarkable in Mr. Mathew’s manner, except that it is 
exceedingly simple, hearty, and manly, and that he does not wear 
the downcast demure look which, I know not why, certainly charac- 
terises the chief part of the gentlemen of his profession. AVhence 
comes that general scowl which darkens the faces of the Irish priest- 
hood ? I have met a score of these reverend gentlemen in the country, 
and not one of them seemed to look or speak frankly, except Mr. 
Mathew, and a couple more. He is almost the only man, too, that 
I have met in Ireland, who, in speaking of public matters, did not 
talk as a partisan. Witli the state of the country, of landlord, 
tenant, and peasantry, he seemed to be most curiously and intimately 
acquainted; speaking of their wants, differences, and the means 
of bettering them, with the minutest practical knowledge. And 
it was impossible in hearing him to know, but from previous ac- 
quaintance wdth his character, whether he was Whig or Tory, 
Catholic or Protestant. Why does not Government make a Privy 
Councillor of him? — that is, if he Avould honour the Right Honour- 
able body by taking a seat amongst them. His knowledge of the 
people is prodigious, and their confidence in him as great ; and what 
a touching attachment that is which these poor fellows show to 
any one who has their cause at heart — even to any one who says 
he has. 

Avoiding all political questions, no man seems more eager than 
he for the practical improvement of this country. Leases and rents, 
farming improvements, reading-societies, music-societies — he was full 
of these, and of his schemes of temperance above all. He never 


FATHER MATHEW 


327 


misses a cliance of making a convert, and has his hand ready and 
a pledge in his pocket for rich or poor. One of his disciples in a 
livery-coat came into the room with a tray — Mr. Mathew recognised 
him, and shook him by the hand directly ; so he did with the 
strangers who were presented to him ; and not with a courtly 
popularity-hunting air, but, as it seemed, from sheer hearty kind- 
ness, and a desire to do every one good. 

When breakfast was done — (he took but one cup of tea, and 
says that, from having been a great consumer of tea and refreshing 
liquids before, a small cup of tea, and one glass of water at dinner, 
now serve him for his day’s beverage) — he took the ladies of our 
party to see his burying-ground — a new and handsome cemetery, 
lying a little way out of the town, and where, thank God ! Protes- 
tants and Catholics may lie together, without clergymen quarrelling 
over their coffins. 

It is a handsome piece of ground, and was formerly a botanic 
garden ; but the funds failed for that undertaking, as they have for 
a thousand other public enterprises in this poor disunited country ; 
and so it has been converted into a hortus siccus for us mortals. 
Tiiere is already a pretty large collection. In the midst is a place 
for Mathew himself — honour to him living or dead ! Meanwhile, 
numerous stately monuments have been built, flowers planted here 
and there over dear remains, and the garden in which they lie is 
rich, green, and beautiful. Here is a fine statue, by Hogan, of a 
weeping genius that broods over the tomb of an honest merchant 
and clothier of the city. He took a liking to tlie artist, his fellow*- 
townsman, and ordered his own monument, and had the gratification 
to see it arrive from Rome a few weeks before his death. A prettier 
thing even than the statue is the tomb of a little boy, which has 
been shut in by a large and curious grille of ironwork. The father 
worked it, a blacksmith, whose darling the child was, and he spent 
three years in hammering out this mausoleum. It is the beautiful 
story of the pot of ointment told again at the poor blacksmith’s 
anvil ; and who can but like him for placing this fine gilded cage 
over the body of his poor little one ? Presently you come to a 
Frenchwoman’s tomb, with a French epitaph by a French husband, 
and a pot of artificial flowers in a niche — a wig, and a pot of rouge, 
as it were, just to make the dead look passably well. It is his 
manner of showing his sympathy for an immortal soul that has 
passed away. The poor may be buried here for nothing ; and here, 
too, once more thank God ! each may rest without priests or 
parsons scowling hell-fire at his neighbour unconscious under the 
grass. 


CHAPTER VI 


CORK— THE URSULINE CONVENT 


HERE is a large Ursuline convent at Blackrock, near Cork, 



and a lady who had been educated there was kind enough to 


^ invite me to join a party to visit the place. Was not this a 
great privilege for a heretic 1 I have peeped into convent chapels 
abroad, and occasionally caught glimpses of a white veil or black 
gown ; but to see the pious ladies in their own retreat was quite a 
novelty — much more exciting than the exhibition of Long Horns and 
Short Horns by which we had to pass on our road to Blackrock. 

The three miles’ ride is very pretty. As far as nature goes, she 
has done her best for the neighbourhood ; and the noble hills on the 
opposite coast of the river, studded with innumerable pretty villas 
and garnished with fine trees and meadows, the river itself dark blue 
under a brilliant cloudless heaven, and lively with its multiplicity of 
gay craft, accompany the traveller along the road ; except here and 
tliere where the view is shut out by fine avenues of trees, a beggarly 
row of cottages, or a villa wall. Rows of dirty cabins, and smart 
bankers’ country-houses, meet one at every turn, nor do the latter 
want for fine names, you may be sure. The Irish grandiloquence 
displays itself finely in the invention of such ; and, to the great 
inconvenience, I should think, of the postman, the names of the 
houses appear to change with the tenants : for I saw many old houses 
with new placards in front, setting forth the last title of the house. 

I had the box of the carriage (a smart vehicle that would have 
done credit to the ring), and found the gentleman by my side very 
communicative. He named the owners of the pretty mansions and 
lawns visible on the other side of the river : they appear almost all 
to be merchants, who have made their fortunes in the city. In the 
like manner, though the air of the town is extremely fresh and pure 
to a pair of London lungs, the Cork shopkeeper is not satisfied with 
it, but contrives for himself a place (with an euphonious name, no 
doubt) in the suburbs of the city. These stretch to a great extent 
along the beautiful liberal-looking banks of the stream. 

I asked the man about the Temperance, and whether he was a 
temperance man 1 He replied by pulling a medal out of his waist- 


THEOLOGY FROM THE COACH-BOX 329 

coat pocket, saying that he always carried it about with him for 
fear of temptation. He said that he took the pledge two years 
ago, before which time, as he confessed, he had been a sad sinner 
in the way of drink. “ I used to take,” said he, “ from eighteen to 
twenty glasses of whisky a day ; I was always at the drink ; I’d 
be often up all night at the public : I was turned away by my 
present master on account of it ; ” — and all of a sudden he resolved 
to break it off. I asked him whether he had not at first experienced 
ill-health from the suddenness of the change in his habits : but 
he said — and let all persons meditating a conversion from liquor 
remember the fact — that the abstinence never affected him in the 
least, but that he went on growing better and better in health every 
day, stronger and more able of mind and body. 

The man was a Catholic, and in speaking of the numerous places 
of wmrship along the road as we passed. I’m sorry to confess, dealt 
some rude cuts with his whip regarding the Protestants. Coachman 
as he was, the fellow^’s remarks seemed to be correct : for it appears 
that the religious world of Cork is of so excessively enlightened a 
kind, that one church will not content one pious person ; but that, 
on the contrary, they will be at church of a morning, at Independent 
church of an afternoon, at a Darbyite congregation of an evening, 
and so on, gathering excitement or information from all sources 
wliich they could come at. Is not this tlie case 1 are not some of 
the ultra-serious as eager after a new preacher, as the ultra-worldly 
for a new dancer 1 don’t they talk and gossip about him as much ? 
Though theology from the coach-box is rather questionable (after all, 
the man was just as much authorised to propound his notions as 
many a fellow from an amateur pulpit), yet he certainly had the 
right here as far as his charge against certain Protestants went. 

The reasoning from it was quite obvious, and I’m sure was in the 
man’s mind, though he did not utter it, as we drove by this time 
into the convent gate. “ Here,” says coachman, “ is oiir churcli. I 
don’t drive my master and mistress from church to cliapel, from 
chapel to conventicle, hunting after new preachers every Sabbath. 
I bring them every Sunday and set them down at the same place, 
where they know that everything they hear must be right. Their 
fathers have done the same thing before them ; and the young ladies 
and gentlemen will come here too ; and all tlie new-fangled doctors 
and teachers may go roaring through the land, and still here we 
come regularly, not caring a wdiit for the vagaries of others, knowing 
that we ourselves are in the real old right original way.” 

I am sure this is what the fellow meant by his sneer at the 
Protestants, and their gadding from one doctrine to another; but 
there was no call and no time to have a battle with him, as by 


330 


THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK 


this time we had entered a large lawm covered with haycocks, and 
prettily, as I think, ornamented with a border of blossoming potatoes, 
and drove up to the front door of the convent. It is a huge old 
square house, with many windows, having probably been some 
flaunting squire’s residence ; but the nuns have taken off somewhat 
from its rakish look, by flinging out a couple of wings with chapels, 
or buildings like chapels, at either end. 

A large, lofty, clean, trim hall was open to a flight of steps, and we 
found a young lady in the hall, playing, instead of a pious sonata — 
wliich I vainly thought was the practice in such godly seminaries 
of learning — that abominable rattling piece of music called “La 



Violette,” which it has been my lot to hear executed by other young 
ladies ; and which (with its like) has always appeared to me to be 
constructed upon this simple fashion — to take a tune, and then, as 
it were, to fling it down and up stairs. As soon as the young lady 
playing “ The Violet ” saw us, she quitted the hall and retired to an 
inner apartment, where she resumed the delectable piece at her leisure. 
Indeed there were pianos all over the educational part of the house. 

We were shown into a gay parlour (where hangs a pretty 
drawing representing the melancholy old convent which the Sisters 
previously inhabited in Cork), and presently Sister No. Two-Eiglit 
made her appearance — a pretty and graceful lady, attired as above. 


A NUN 


331 


“ ’Tis the prettiest nun of tlie whole house,” whispered the lady- 
who had been educated at the convent ; and I must own that slim, 
gentle, and pretty, as this young lady was, and calculated with her 
kind smiling face and little figure to frighten no one in the world, a 
great six-foot Protestant coidd not help looking at her v/ith a little 
tremble. I had never been in a nun’s company before ; I’m afraid 
of such — I don’t care to own — in their black mysterious robes and 
awful veils. As i)riests in gorgeous vestments, and little rosy 
incense-boys in red, bob their heads and knees u]) and down before 
altars, or clatter silver pots full of smoking odours, I feel I don’t 
know what sort of thrill and secret creeping terror. Here I was in 
a room with a real live nun, pretty and pale — I wonder has she any 
of her sisterhood immured in oubliettes down below ; is her poor 
little weak delicate body scarred ail over with scourgings, iron- 
collars, hair-shirts 1 AVhat has she had for dinner to-day 1 — as we 
passed the refectory there was a faint sort of vapid nun-like vegetable 
smell, speaking of fasts and wooden platters ; and I coidd picture 
to myself silent sisters eating their meal — a grim old yellow one in 
the reading-desk, (3roaking out an extract from a sermon for their 
edification. 

But is it policy, or hypocrisy, or reality 1 These nuns affect 
extreme happiness and content with their condition : a smiling 
beatitude, wdiich they insist belongs peculiarly to them, and about 
which the only doubtful point is the manner in which it is produced 
before strangers. Young ladies educated in convents have often 
mentioned this fact — ^how the nuns persist in declaring and proving 
to them their own extreme enjoyment of life. 

Were all the smiles of that kind-looking Sister Two-Eight perfectly 
sincere? Whenever she spoke her face w’as lighted up with one. 
She seemed perfectly radiant with happiness, tripping lightly before 
us, and distributing kind compliments to each, wdiich made me in a 
very few minutes forget the introductory fright w^hich her poor little 
presence had occasioned. 

Slie took us through the hall (where was the vegetable savour 
before mentioned) and showed us the contrivance by wdiich the 
name of Two-Eight was ascertained. Each nun has a number, or a 
combination of numbers, prefixed to her name ; and a bell is pulled 
a corresponding number of times, by wdiich each sister know’s wdien 
she is w^anted. Poor souls ! are they always on the look-out for that 
bell, that the ringing of it should be supposed infallibly to awaken 
their attention ? 

From the hall the sister conducted us through ranges of 
apartments, and I had almost said avenues of pianofortes, wdience 
here and there a startled pensioner w^ould rise, hinnuleo similis, at 


332 


THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK 


our approach, seeking a 2 'x^viclam matrem in the person of a demure 
old stout mother hard by. We were taken through a hall decorated 
with a series of pictures of Pope Pius VI., — wonderful adventures, 
truly, in the life of the gentle old man. In one you see him grace- 
fully receiving a Prince and Princess of Russia (tremendous incident !). 
The Prince has a pigtail, the Princess powder and a train, the Pope 

a but never mind, we shall never get through the house at 

this rate. 

Passing through Pope Pius’s gallery, we came into a long, clean, 
lofty passage, with many little doors on each side ; and here I confess 
my heart began to thump again. These were the doors of the cells 
of the Sisters. Bon Dieu ! and is it possible that I shall see a 
nun’s cell 1 Do I not recollect the nun’s cell in “ The Monk,” or in 
“ The Romance of the Forest ” ? or, if not there, at any rate in a 
thousand noble romances, read in early days of half-holiday perhaps 
— romances at twopence a volume. 

Come in, in the name of the saints ! Here is the cell. I took 
off my hat and examined tlie little room with much curious wonder 
and reverence. There was an iron bed, with comfortable curtains 
of green serge. There was a little clothes-chest of yellow wood, 
neatly cleaned, and a wooden chair beside it, and a desk on the 
chest, and about six pictures on the wall, — little religious pictures : 
a saint with gilt paper round him ; the Virgin showing on her breast 
a bleeding heart, with a sword run through it ; and other sad little 
subjects, calculated to make the inmate of tlie cell think of the 
sufferings of the saints and martyrs of the Church. Then there was 
a little crucifix, and a wax-candle on the ledge ; and here was the 
place where the poor black-veiled things were to pass their lives 
for ever ! 

After having seen a couple of these little cells, we left the 
corridors in which they were, and were conducted, with a sort of 
pride on tlie nun’s part, I thought, into the grand room of the 
convent — a parlour vuth pictures of saints and a gay paper, and a 
series of small fineries, such only as women very idle know how to 
make. There were some portraits in the room, one an atrocious 
daub of an ugly old woman, surrounded by children still more hideous. 
Somebody had told the poor nun that this was a fine thing, and she 
believed it — Heaven bless her ! — quite implicitly : nor is the picture 
of the ugly old Canadian woman the first reputation that has been 
made this way. 

Then from the fine parlour we went to the museum. I don’t 
know how we should be curious of such trifles ; but the chronicling 
of small-beer is the main business of life — people only differing, as 
Tom Moore wisely says in one of his best poems, about their own 


MUSEUM OF THE URSULINE CONVENT 333 

peculiar tap. The poor lum’s little collection of gimcracks was 
displayed in great state : there were spars in one drawer ; and, I 
think, a Chinese shoe and some Indian wares in another ; and some 
medals of the Popes, and a couple of score of coins ; and a clean 
glass case, full of antique works of French theology of the distant 
l)eriod of Louis XV., to judge by the bindings — and this formed the 
main part of the museum. “The chief objects were gathered 
together by a single nun,” said the sister with a look of wonder, as 
she W'ent prattling on, and leading us hither and thither, like a 
child showing her toys. 

What strange mixture of pity and pleasure is it whicli comes 
over you sometimes when a child takes you by the hand, and leads 
you up solemnly to some little treasure of its own — a feather or a 
string of glass beads. I declare I have often looked at such with 
more delight than at diamonds ; and felt the same sort of soft 
wonder examining the nuns’ little treasure-chamber. There was 
something touching in the very poverty of it ; — had it been finer it 
would not have been half so good. 

And now we had seen all the wonders of the house but the 
chapel, and thither we were conducted ; all the ladies of our party 
kneeling down as they entered the building, and saying a short 
prayer. 

This, as I am on sentimental confessions, I must own affected 
me too. It was a very pretty and tender sight. I should have 
liked to kneel down too, but was ashamed; our northern usages 
not encouraging — among men at least — that sort of abandonment 
of dignity. Do any of us dare to sing psalms at church ? and don’t 
we look with rather a sneer at a man who does 1 

The chaj)el had nothing remarkable in it except a very good 
organ, as I was told ; for we were allowed only to see the exterior 
of that instrument, our pious guide with much pleasure removing 
an oil-cloth which covered the mahogany. At one side of the altar 
is a long high grille, through which you see a hall, where the nuns 
have their stalls, and sit in chapel time ; and beyond this hall is 
another small chapel, with a couple of altars, and one beautiful 
print in one of them — a German Holy Family — a prim, mystical, 
tender piece, just befitting the place. 

In the grille is a little wicket and a ledge before it. It is to 
this wicket that women are brought to kneel ; and a bishop is in 
the chapel on the other side, and takes their hands in his, and 
receives their vows. I had never seen the like before, and own 
that I felt a sort of shudder at looking at the place. There rest 
the girl’s knees as she offers herself up, and forswears the sacred 
affections which God gave her; there she kneels and denies for ever 


334> 


THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK 


the beautiful duties of her being ; — no tender maternal yearnings, 
no gentle attachments are to be had for her or from her — there s-he 
kneels and commits suicide upon her heart. 0 honest Martin 
Luther ! thank God, you came to pull that inferaal, wicked, un- 
natural altar down — that cursed Paganism ! Let people, solitary, 
worn out by sorrow or oppressed with extreme remorse, retire to 
such places ; fly and beat your breasts in caverns and wildernesses, 
0 women, if you will, but be Magdalens first. It is shameful that 
any young girl, with any vocation however seemingly strong, should 
be allowed to bury herself in this small tomb of a few acres. Look 
at yonder nun — pretty, smiling, graceful, and young — what has 
God’s world done to her, that she should run from it, or she done to 
the world, that she should avoid it ? What call has she to give up 
all her duties and affections '? and would she not be best serving 
God with a husband at her side, and a cliild on her knee ? 

The sights in the house having been seen, the nun led us through 
the grounds and gardens. There was the hay in front, a fine yellow 
cornfield at the back of the house, and a large, melancholy-looking 
kitchen-garden ; in all of which places the nuns, for certain hours in 
the day, are allowed to take recreation. “ The nuns here are allowed 
to amuse themselves more than ours at New Hall,” said a little girl 
who is educated at that English convent : “ do you know that here 
the nuns may make hay ? ” What a privilege is this ! We saw 
none of the black sisterhood availing themselves of it, however : 
the hay was neatly piled into cocks and ready for housing ; so the 
poor souls must wait until next year before they can enjoy this 
blessed sport once more. 

Turning into a narrow gate with the nun at our head, we found 
ourselves in a little green quiet enclosure — it was the burial-ground 
of the convent. The poor things know the places where they are 
to lie : she who was with us talked smilingly of being stretched 
there one day, and pointed out the resting-place of a favourite 
old sister wdio had died three mouths back, and been buried in the 
very midst of the little ground. And here they come to live and 
die. The gates are open, but they never go out. All their world 
lies in a dozen acres of ground; and they sacrifice their lives in 
early youth, many of them passing from the grave upstairs in the 
house to the one scarcely narrower in the churchyard here; and 
are seemingly not unhappy. 

I came out of the place quite sick ; and looking before me, — 
there, thank God ! was the blue spire of Monkstown church soaring 
up into the free sky — a river in front rolling away to the sea — 
liberty, sunshine, all sorts of glad life and motion round about : 
and I couldn’t but thank Heaven for it, and the Being whose 


A SENTIMENTAL HOMILY 


335 


service is freedom, and wiio has given us aifections that we may 
use them — not smother and kill them ; and a noble world to live 
in, that we may admire it and Him who made it — not shrink from 
it, as though we dared not live there, hut must turn our backs 
upon it and its bountiful Provider. 

And in conclusion, if that most cold-blooded and precise of all 
personages, the respectable and respected English reader, may feel 
disposed to sneer at the above sentimental homily, or to fancy that 
it has been WTitten for effect — let him go and see a convent for 
himself. I declare I think for my part that we have as much 
right to permit Sutteeism in India as to allow women in the United 
Kingdom to take these wicked vows, or Catholic bishops to receive 
them; and that Government has as good a right to interpose in 
such cases, as the police have to prevent a man from hanging him- 
self, or the doctor to refuse a glass of prussic-acid to any one who 
may have a wish to go out of the world. 


CHAPTER VII 


CORK 


yilDST the bustle and gaieties of the Agricultural meeting, 



the working-day aspect of the city was not to be judged of: 


^ ^ but I passed a fortnight in the place afterwards, during 
which time it settled down to its calm and usual condition. The 
flashy French and plated goods shops, which made a show for the 
occasion of the meeting, disappeared ; you were no longer crowded 
and jostled by smart male and female dandies in walking down 
Patrick Street or the Mall ; the poor little theatre had scarcely a 
soul on its bare benches : I went once, but the dreadful brass-band 
of a dragoon regiment blew me out of doors. This music could be 
heard much more pleasantly at some distance off in the street. 

One sees in this country many a grand and tall iron gate leading 
into a very shabby field covered with thistles ; and the simile to 
the gate will in some degree apply to this famous city of Cork, — 
which is certainly not a city of palaces, but of which the outlets 
are magnificent. That towards Killarney leads by the Lee, the old 
Avenue of Mardyke, and the rich green pastures stretching down to 
the river ; and as you pass by the portico of the county gaol, as fine 
and as glancing as a palace, you see the wooded heights on the 
other side of the fair stream, crowded with a thousand pretty villas 
and terraces, presenting every image of comfort and prosperity. 
The entrance from Cove has been mentioned before ; nor is it easy 
to find anywhere a nobler, grander, and more cheerful scene. 

Along tlie quays up to Saint Patrick’s Bridge there is a certain 
bustle. Some forty ships may be lying at anchor along the walls 
of the quay, and its pavements are covered with goods of various 
merchandise : here a cargo of hides ; yonder a company of soldiers, 
their kits, and their Dollies, who are taking leave of the red-coats 
at the steamer’s side. Then you shall see a fine, squeaking, shriek- 
ing drove of pigs embarking by the same conveyance, and insinuated 
into the steamer by all sorts of coaxing, threatening, and wheedling. 
Seamen are singing and yeehoing on board ; grimy colliers smoking 
at the liquor-shops along the quay; and as for the bridge — there 
is a crowd of idlers on that, you may be sure, sprawling over the 


POVERTY IN CORK 337 

balustrade for ever and ever, with long ragged coats, steeple-hats, 
and stumpy doodeens. 

Tlien along the Coal Quay you may see a clump of jingle-drivers, 
who have all a word for your honour ; and in Patrick Street, at 
three o’clock, when “The Rakes of Mallow” gets under way (a 
cracked old coach with the paint rubbed off, some smart horses, and 
an exceedingly dingy harness) — at three o’clock, you will be sure to 
see at least forty persons waiting to witness the departure of the 
said coach : so that the neighbourhood of the inn has an air of 
some bustle. 

At the other extremity of the town, if it be assize time, you 
will see some five liundred persons squatting by the court-house, or 
buzzing and talking within. The rest of the respectable quarter of 
the city is pretty free from anything like bustle : there is no more 
life in Patrick Street than in Russell Square of a sunshiny day ; 
and as for the Mall, it is as lonely as the chief street of a German 
Residenz. 

I have mentioned the respectable quarter of the city — for there 
are quarters in it swarming with life, but of such a frightful kind 
as no pen need care to describe : alleys where the odours and rags 
and darkness are so hideous, that one runs frightened away from 
them. In some of them, they say, not the policeman, only the 
priest, can penetrate. I asked a Roman Catholic clergyman of the 
city to take me into some of these haunts, but he refused very 
justly ; and indeed a man may be quite satisfied with what he can 
see in the mere outskirts of the districts, without caring to penetrate 
farther. Not far from the quays is an open space where the poor 
hold a market or bazaar. Here is liveliness and business enough : 
ragged women chattering and crying their beggarly wares ; ragged 
boys gloating over dirty apple- and pie-stalls ; fish frying, and raw 
and stinking ; clothes-booths, where you might buy a wardrobe for 
scarecrows ; old nails, hoops, bottles, and marine-wares ; old battered 
furniture, that has been sold against starvation. In the streets 
round about this place, on a sunshiny day, all the black gaping 
windows and mouldy steps are covered witli squatting lazy figures 
— women, with bare breasts, nursing babies, and leering a joke as 
you pass by — ragged children paddling everywhere. It is but two 
minutes’ walk out of Patrick Street, where you come upon a fine 
flashy shop of plated goods, or a grand French emporium of dolls, 
walking-sticks, carpet-bags, and perfumery. The markets hard by 
have a rough, old-fashioned, cheerful look ; it’s a comfort after the 
misery to hear a red butcher’s wife crying after you to buy an honest 
piece of meat. 

The poor-house, newly established, cannot hold a fifth part of 
5 Y 


338 


THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK 


the poverty of this great town : the richer inhabitants are untiring 
in their charities, and the Catholic clergyman before mentioned took 
me to see a delivery of rice, at which he presides every day until 
the potatoes shall come in. This market, over which he presides 
so kindly, is held in an old bankrupt warehouse, and the rice is 
sold considerably under the prime cost to hundreds of struggling 
applicants who come when lucky enough to have wherewithal to 
pay. 

That the city contains iniuili wealth is evidenced by the number 
of handsome villas round about it, where the rich merchants dwell ; 
but the warehouses of the wealthy provision-merchants make no 
show to the stranger walking the streets ; and of the retail-shops, 
if some are si)acious and handsome, most look as if too big for 
the business carried on within. The want of ready-money was 
quite curious. In three of the principal shops I purchased articles, 
and temlered a pound in exchange — not one of them had silver 
enough ; and as for a five-pound note, which I presented at one 
of the topping booksellers’, his boy went round to various places in 
vain, and finally set forth to the Bank, where change was got. In 
another small shop I offered half-a-crown to pay for a sixpenny 
article — it was all the same. Tim,” says the good woman, “ run 
out in a hurry and fetch the gentleman change.” Two of the shop- 
men, seeing an Englishman, were very particular to tell me in 
what years they themselves had been in London. It seemed a 
merit in these gentlemen’s eyes to have once dwelt in that city ; 
and I see in the papers continually ladies advertising as governesses, 
and specifying particularly that they are “ English ladies.” 

I received six £5 post-office orders ; I called four times on as 
many'different days at the Post Office before the capital could be 
forthcoming, getting on the third application £20 (after making a 
great chimour, and vowing that such things were unheard of in 
England), and on the fourth call the remaining £10. I saw poor 
people, who may have come from the country with their orders, 
refused payment of an order of some 40s. ; and a gentleman who 
tendered a pound-note in payment of a foreign letter, was told to 
“ leave his letter and pay some other time.” Such things could not 
take place in the hundred-and-second city in England ; and as I do 
not pretend to doctrinise at all, I leave the reader to draw his own 
deductions with regard to the commercial condition and prosperity 
of the second city in Ireland. 

Half-a-dozen of the public buildings I saw were spacious and 
shabby beyond all cockney behef. Adjoining the “ Imperial Hotel ” 
is a great, large, handsome, desolate reading-room, which was 
founded by a body of Cork merchants and tradesmen, and is the 


SHABBINESS OF BUILDINGS 339 

very picture of decay. Not Palmyra — not the Russell Institution 
in Great Coram Street — presents a more melancholy appearance of 
faded greatness. Opposite this is another institution, called the 
Cork Library, where there are plenty of books and plenty of 
kindness to the stranger ; but the shabbiness and faded splendour 
of the place are quite painful. There are three handsome Catholic 
churches commenced of late years ; not one of them is complete ; 
two want their porticoes ; the other is not more than thirty feet 
from the ground, and according to the architectural plan was to 
rise as high as a cathedral. There is an Institution, with a fair 
library of scientific works, a museum, and a drawing-school with 
a supply of casts. The place is in yet more dismal condition than 
the Library : the plasters are spoiled incurably for want of a 
sixpenny feather-brush ; the dust lies on the walls, and nobody 
seems to heed it. Two shillings a year would have repaired much 
of the evil which has happened to this institution; and it is folly 
to talk of inward dissensions and jjolitical differences as causing the 
ruin of such institutions : kings or law don’t cause or cure dust and 
cobwebs, but indolence leaves them to accumulate, and imprudence 
will not calculate its income, and vanity exaggerates its own powers, 
and the fault is laid upon that tyrant of a sister kingdom. The 
whole country is filled with such failures : swaggering beginnings that 
could not be carried through ; grand enterprises begun dashingly, 
and ending in shabby compromises or downright ruin. 

I have said something in praise of the manners of the Cork 
ladies : in regard of the gentlemen, a stranger too must remark the 
extraordinary degree of literary taste and talent amongst them, and 
tlie wit and vivacity of their conversation. The love for literature 
seems to an Englishman doubly curious. What, generally speaking, 
do a company of grave gentlemen and ladies in Baker Street know 
about it? Who ever reads books in the City, or how often does 
one hear them talked about at a Club ? The Cork citizens are the 
most book-loving men I ever met. The town has sent to England 
a number of literary men, of reputation too, and is not a little 
proud of their fame. Everybody seeiTied to know what Maginn was 
doing, and that Father Front had a third volume ready, and what 
was Mr. Croker’s last article in the Quarterly. The young clerks 
and shopmen seemed as much au fait as their employers, and many 
is the conversation I heard about the merits of this writer or that — 
Dickens, Ainsworth, Lover, Lever. 

I think, in walking the streets, and looking at the ragged 
urchins crowding there, every Englishman must remark that the 
superiority of intelligence is here, and not with us. I never saw 
such a collection of bright-eyed, wild, clever, eager faces. Mr. 


340 


THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK 


Maclise has carried away a number of them in his memory ; and 
the lovers of his admirable pictures will find more than one Munster 
countenance under a helmet in company of Macbeth, or in a slashed 
doublet alongside of Prince Hamlet, or in the very midst of Spain in 
company with Senor Gil Bias. Gil Bias himself came from Cork, 
and not from Oviedo. 

I listened to two boys almost in rags : they w^ere lolling over 
the quay balustrade, and talking about one of the Ftolemys ! and 
talking very well too. One of them had been reading in “Rollin,” 
and was detailing his information with a great deal of eloquence and 
fire. Another day, walking in the Mardyke, I followed three boys, 
not half so well dressed as London errand-boys : one was telling the 
other about Captain Ross’s voyages, and spoke with as much bright- 
ness and intelligence as the best-read gentleman’s son in England 
could do. He was as much of a gentleman too, the ragged young 
student ; his manner as good, though perhaps more eager and 
emphatic; his language was extremely rich, too, and eloquent. 
Does the reader remember liis schooldays, when half-a-dozen lads 
in the bedrooms took it by turns to tell stories'? how poor the 
language generally was, and how exceedingly poor the imagination ! 
Both of those ragged Irish lads had the making of gentlemen, 
scholars, orators, in them. A j^rojms of love of reading, let me 
mention here a Dublin story. Doctor Lever, the celebrated author 
of “ Harry Lorrequer,” went into Dycer’s stables to buy a horse. 
The groom who brought the animal out, directly he heard who 
the gentleman was, came out and touched his cap, and pointed to 
a little book in his pocket in a pink cover. “ I canH do without 
it, sirf says the man. It was “ Harry Lorrequer.” I wonder 
does any one of Mr. Rymell’s grooms take in “Pickwick,” or 
would they have any curiosity to see Mr. Dickens, should he pass 
that way '? 

Tlie Corkagians are eager for a Munster University ; asking for, 
and having a very good right to, the same privilege which has been 
granted to the chief city of the North of Ireland. It would not fail 
of being a great benefit to the city and to the country too, which 
would have no need to go so far as Dublin for a school of letters 
and medicine ; nor. Whig and Catholic for the most part, to attend 
a Tory and Protestant University. The establishing of an opeji 
college in Munster would bring much popularity to any Ministry 
that should accord such a boon. People would cry out, “ Popery 
and Infidelity,” doubtless, as they did wlien the London University 
was established ; as the same party in Spain would cry out, 
“ Atheism and Heresy.” But the time, thank God ! is gone by 
in England when it was necessary to legislate for them ; and Sir 


PUBLIC INSTITUTIONS 


341 


Eobert Peel, in giving bis adherence to the National Education 
scheme, has sanctioned the principle of which this so much longed- 
for college would only be a consequence. 

The medical charities and hospitals are said to be very well 
arranged, and the medical men of far more than ordinary skill. 
Other public institutions are no less excellent. I was taken over 
the Lunatic Asylum, where everything was conducted with admir- 
able comfort, cleanliness, and kindness ; and as for the county gaol, 
it is so neat, spacious, and comfortable, that we can only pray to 
see every cottager in the country as cleanly, well lodged, and well 
fed as the convicts are. They get a pound of bread and a pint 
of milk twice a day : there must be millions of people in this 
wretched country, to whom such food would be a luxury that tlieir 
utmost labours can never by possibility procure for them; and in 
going over this admirable institution, where everybody is cleanly, 
healthy, and well clad, I could not but think of the rags and filth 
of the horrid starvation market before mentioned; so that the 
prison seemed almost a sort of premium for vice. But the people 
like their freedom, such as it is, and prefer to starve and be ragged 
as they list. They will not go to the poor-houses, except at the 
greatest extremity, and leave them on the slightest chance of 
existence elsewhere. 

Walking away from this palace of a prison, you pass amidst 
all sorts of delightful verdure, cheerful gardens, and broad green 
luscious pastures, down to the beautiful River Lee. On one side, 
the river shines away towards the city with its towers and purple 
steeples ; on the other it is broken by little waterfalls and bound 
in by blue hills, an old castle towering in the distance, and innumer- 
able parks and villas lying along the pleasant wooded banks. How 
beautiful the scene is, how rich and how happy ! Yonder, in the 
old Mardyke Avenue, you hear the voices of a score of children, 
and along the bright green meadows, where the cows are feeding, 
the gentle shadows of the clouds go playing over the grass. Who 
can look at such a charming scene but with a thankful swelling 
heart h 

In the midst of your pleasure, three beggars have hobbled up, 
and are howling supplications to the Lord. One is old and blind, 
and so diseased and hideous, that straightway all the pleasure of 
the sight round about vanishes from you — that livid ghastly face 
interposing between you and it. And so it is throughout the south 
and west of Ireland ; the traveller is haunted by the face of the 
popular starvation. It is not the exception, it is the condition of 
the people. In this fairest and richest of countries, men are suffer- 
ing and starving by millions. There are thousands of tliein at this 


342 


THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK 


minute stretched in the sunshine at their cabin doors with no work, 
scarcely any food, no hope seemingly. Strong countrymen are 
lying in bed “/or the hunger ” — because a man lying on liis back 
does not need so much food as a person afoot. Many of them have 
torn up the unripe potatoes from their little gardens, to exist now, 
and must look to winter, when they shall have to suffer starvation 
and cold too. The epicurean, and traveller for jdeasure, had better 
travel anywhere than here : Avhere there are miseries that one does 
not dare to think of ; where one is always feeling how helpless pity 
is, and how hopeless relief, and is perpetually made ashamed of 
being happy. 

I have just been strolling up a pretty little height called 
Grattan’s Hill, that overlooks the town and the river, and where 
the artist that comes Cork-wards may find many subjects for his 
pencil. Tliere is a kind of pleasure-ground at the top of this 
eminence — a broad walk that draggles up to a ruined wall, with 
a ruined niche in it, and a battered stone bench. On the side that 
shelves down to the water are some beeches, and opposite them a 
row of houses from wliich you see one of the prettiest prospects 
possible — the shining river with the craft along the quays, and the 
busy city in the distance, tlie active little steamers puffing away 
towards Cove, the farther bank crowned with rich woods, and 
pleasant-looking country-houses : perhaps they are tumbling, rickety, 
and ruinous, as those houses close by us, but you can’t see the ruin 
from here. 

What a strange air of forlorn gaiety there is about the place !— 
the sky itself seems as if it did not know whether to laugh or cry, 
so full is it of clouds and sunshine. Little fat, ragged, smiling 
children are clambering about the rocks, and sitting on mossy door- 
steps, tending other children yet smaller, fatter, and more dirty. 
“Stop till I get you a posy” (pronounced cries one 
urchin to another. “ Tell me who is it ye love, Jooly 1 ” exclaims 
another, cuddling a .red-faced infant with a very dirty nose. More 
of the same race are perched about tlie summer-house, and two 
wenches with large purple feet are flapping some carpets in the air. 
It is a wonder the carpets will bear this kind of treatment at all, 
and do not be oft* at once to mingle with the elements : I never 
saw things that hung to life by such a frail thread. 

This dismal pleasant place is a suburb of the second city in 
Ireland, and one of the most beautiful spots about the town. What 
a prim, bustling, active, green-rail inged, tea-gardened, gravel-walked 
])lace would it have been in the five-hundredth town in England ! — ■ 
but you see the people can be quite as happy in the rags and with- 


SUBURBAN SCENES 


34S 


out the paint, and I hear a great deal more heartiness and affection 
from these children than from their fat little brethren across the 
Channel. 

If a man wanted to study ruins, here is a house close at hand, 
not forty years old no doubt, but yet as completely gone to wreck 
as Netley Abbey. It is quite curious to study that liouse ; and a 
pretty ruinous fabric of improvidence, extravagance, liappiness, and 
disaster may the imagination build out of it ! In the first place, 
the owners did not wait to finish it before they went to inhabit it ! 
This is written in just such another place : a handsome drawing- 
room with a good carpet, a lofty marble mantelpiece, and no paper 
to the walls. The door is prettily painted white and blue, and 
though not six weeks old, a great piece of the woodwork is off 
already (Peggy uses it to prevent the door from banging to) ; and 
there are some fine chinks in every one of the panels, by which my 
neiglibour may see all my doings. 

A couple of score of years, and this house will be just like 
yonder place on Grattan’s Hill. 

Like a young prodigal, the house begins to use its constitution 
too early; and when it should yet (in the shape of carpenters and 
painters) have all its masters and guardians to watch and educate 
it, my house on Grattan’s Hill must be a man at once, and enjoy 
all the privileges of strong health ! I would lay a guinea they were 
making punch in that house before they could keep the rain out of 
it ! that they had a dinner-party and ball before the floors were firm 
or the wainscots painted, and a fine tester-bed in the best room, 
where my lady might catch cold in state, in the midst of yawning 
chimneys, creaking window -sashes, and smoking plaster. 

Now look at the door of the coach-house, with its first coat of 
paint seen yet, and a variety of patches to keep the feeble barrier 
together. The loft was arched once, but a great corner has tumbled 
off at one end, leaving a gash that unites the windows with the 
coach-house door. Several of the arch-stones are removed, and the 
whole edifice is about as rambling and disorderly as — as the arrange- 
ment of this book, say. Very tall tufts of mouldy moss are on the 
drawing-room windows, with long white heads of grass. As I am 
sketching this — honk I — a great lean sow comes trampling through 
the slush within the courtyard, breaks down the flimsy apparatus of 
rattling boards and stones which had passed for the gate, and walks 
with her seven squeaking little ones to disport on the grass on 
the hill. 

The drawing-room of the tenement mentioned just now, with its 
pictures, and pulleyless windows and lockless doors, was tenanted 
by a friend who lodged there with a sick wife and a couple of little 


S44 


THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK 


children ; one of whom was an infant in arms. It is not, however, 
the lodger — who is an Englishman — but the kind landlady and her 
family who may well be described here — for their like are hardly to 
be found on the other side of the Channel. Mrs. Fagan is a young 
widow who has seen better days, and that portrait over the grand 
mantelpiece is the picture of her husband that is gone, a handsome 
young man, and well to do at one time as a merchant. But the 
widow (she is as pretty, as ladylike, as kind, and as neat as ever 
widow could be) has little left to live upon but the rent of her 
lodgings and her furniture ; of which we have seen the best in the 
drawing-room. 

She has three fine children of her own : there is Minny, and 
Katey, and Patsey, and they occupy indifferently the dining-room 
on the ground-ffoor or the kitchen opposite ; where in the midst of 
a great smoke sits an old nurse, by a copper of potatoes which is 
always bubbling and full. Patsey swallows quantities of them, 
that’s clear : his cheeks are as red and shining as apples, and when 
he roars, you are sure that his lungs are in the finest condition. 
Next door to the kitchen is the pantry, a^xl there is a bucketful of 
the before-mentioned fruit, and a grand service of china for dinner 
and dessert. The kind young widow shows them with no little pride, 
and says with reason that there are few lodging-houses in Cork that 
can match such china as that. They are relics of the happy old 
times when Fagan kept his gig and horse, doubtless, and had his 
friends to dine — the happy prosperous days which she has exchanged 
for poverty and the sad black gown. 

Patsey, Minny, and Katey have made friends with the little 
English people upstairs ; the elder of whom, in the course of a month, 
has as fine a Munster brogue as ever trolled over the lips of any born 
Corkagian. The old nurse carries out the whole united party to 
walk, with the exception of the English baby, that jumps about in 
the arms of a countrywoman of her own. That is, unless one of the 
four Miss Fagans takes her ; for four of them there are, four other 
Miss Fagans, from eighteen downwards to fourteen : — handsome, 
fresh, lively, dancing, bouncing girls. You may always see two or 
three of them smiling at the parlour-window, and they laugh and 
turn away their heads when any young fellow looks at and admires 
them. 

Now, it stands to reason that a young widow of five-and-twenty 
can’t be the mother of four young ladies of eighteen downwards ; and, 
if anybody wants to know how they come to be living with the poor 
widow their cousin, the answer is, they are on a visit. Peggy the 
maid says their papa is a gentleman of property, and can “spend 
his eight hundred a year.” 


A FAMILY SKETCH 


345 


Why don’t they remain with the old gentleman then, instead of 
quartering on the poor young widow, who has her own little mouths 
to feed? The reason is, the old gentleman has gone and married 
his cook ; and the daughters have quitted him in a body, refusing 
to sit down to dinner with a person who ought by rights to be in 
the kitchen. The whole family (the Fagans are of good family) 
take the quarrel v?bp, and here are the young people under shelter 
of the widow. 

Four merrier tenderer-hearted girls are not to be found in all 
Ireland ; and the only subject of coiitention amongst them is, wdiich 
shall have the English baby : they are nursing it, and singing to it, 
and dandling it by turns all day long. AVhen they are not singing 
to the baby, they are singing to an old piano : such an old wiry, 
jingling, wheezy piano ! It has plenty of wmrk, playing jigs and 
song accompaniments betw^een meals, and acting as a sideboard at 
dinner. I am not sure that it is at rest at night either ; but have 
a shrew’d suspicion that it is turned into a four-post bed. And for 
the following reason : — 

Every afternoon, at four o’clock, you see a tall old gentleman 
wmlking leisurely to tlie house. He is dressed in a long great-coat 
witli huge pockets, and in the huge pockets are sure to be some big 
apples for all the children — ^the English child amongst the rest, and 
she generally has the biggest one. At seven o’clock, you are sure to 
hear a deep voice shouting “ Paggy ! ” in an awTul tone — it is the 
old gentleman calling for his “materials ” ; wdiich Peggy brings with- 
out any farther ado ; and a glass of punch is made, no doubt, for 
everybody. Then the party separates : the children and the old 
nurse have long since tramped upstairs ; Peggy has the kitchen for 
her sleeping-apartment, and the four young ladies make it out some- 
how in the back drawdng-room. As for the old gentleman, he reposes 
in the parlour ; and it must be somewhere about the piano, for there 
is no furniture in the room except that, a table, a few old chairs, a 
workbox, and a couple of albums. 

The English girl’s father met her in the street one day, talking 
confidentially wdth a tall old gentleman in a great-coat. “Who’s 
your friend?” says the Englishman afterwards to the little girl. 
“Don’t you know him, papa?” said the child in the purest brogue. 
“ Don’t you know him ? — That’s Uncle James ! ” And so it 
was : in this kind, poor, generous, barebacked house, the English 
child found a set of new relations : little rosy brothers and sisters 
to play wdth, kind wmmen to take the place of the almost dying 
mother, a good old Uncle James to bring her home apples and care 
for her — one and all ready to share their little pittance with her, 
and to give her a place in their simple friendly hearts. God 


346 


THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK 


Almighty bless the widow and her mite, and all the kind souls 
under her roof ! 

How much goodness and generosity — how much purity, fine 
feeling — nay, happiness — may dwell amongst the poor whom we 
have been just looking at ! Here, thank God, is an instance of this 
happy and cheerful poverty : and it is good to look, when one can, 
at the heart that beats under the threadbare coat, as well as the 
tattered old garment itself. Well, please Heaven, some of those 
people whom we have been looking at are as good, and not much 
less happy : but though they are accustomed to their want, the 
stranger does not reconcile himself to it quickly ; and I hope no 
Irish reader will be offended at my speaking of this poverty, not 
with scorn or ill-feeling, but with hearty sympathy and good-will. 


One word more regarding the Widow Fagan’s house. When 
Peggy brought in coals for the drawing-room fire, she carried them 
— in what do you think ? “ In a coal-scuttle, to be sure,” says the 

English reader, down on you as sharp as a needle. 

Ko, you clever Englishman, it wasn’t a coal-scuttle. 

“Well, then, it was in a fire-shovel,” says that brightest of 
wits, guessing again. 

No, it ivasnH a fire-shovel, you heaven-born genius; and you 
might guess from this until Mrs. Snooks called you up to coffee, 
and you would never find out. It was in something which I have 
already described in Mrs. Fagan’s pantry. 

“ Oh, I have you now : it was the bucket where the potatoes 
were ; the thlatternly wetch ! ” says Snooks. 

Wrong again ! Peggy brought up the coals — in a china 

PLATE ! 

Snooks turns quite white with surprise, and almost chokes him- 
self with his port. “Well,” says he, “of all the wum count with 
that I ever wead of, hang me if Ireland ithn’t the ivummeiht, 
Coalth in a plate ! Mawyann, do you hear that ? In Ireland they 
alwayth thend up their coalth in a plate ! ” 


CHAPTER VIII 


iFROM CORK TO BANTRY ; WITH AN ACCOUNT OF 
THE CITY OF SKIBBEREEN 

T hat light four-inside, four-horse coach, the “ Skibbereen 
Perseverance,” brought me fifty-two miles to-day, for the 
sum of three-and-sixpence, through a country which is, as 
usual, somewhat difficult to describe. We issued out of Cork by 
the western road, in which, as the Guide-book says, there is some- 
thing very imposing. “ The magnificence of the county court-house, 
the extent, solidity, and characteristic sternness of the county gaol,” 
were visible to us for a few minutes; when, turning away southward 
from tlie pleasant banks of the stream, the road took us towards 
Bandon, through a country that is bare and ragged-looking, but yet 
green and pretty; and it always seems to me, like the people, to 
look clieerful in spite of its wretchedness, or, more correctly, to look 
tearful and cheerful at the same time. 

The coach, like almost every other public vehicle I have seen in 
Ireland, was full to the brim and over it. What can send these 
restless people travelling and hurrying about from place to place as 
they do '? I have heard one or two gentlemen hint that they had 
“ business ” at this place or that ; and found afterwards that one 
was going a couple of score of miles to look at a mare, another to 
examine a setter-dog, and so on. I did not make it my business to 
ask on what errand the gentlemen on the coach were bound; though 
two of them, seeing an Englishman, very good-naturedly began 
chalking out a route for him to take, and showing a sort of interest 
in his affairs, which is not with us generally exhibited. The coach, 
too, seemed to have the elastic hospitality of some Irish houses ; it 
accommodated an almost impossible number. For the greater part 
of the journey the little guard sat on the roof among the carpet- 
bags, holding in one hand a huge tambour-frame, in the other a 
bandbox marked “Foggarty, Hatter.” (What is there more ridi- 
culous in the name of Foggarty than in that of Smith 1 and yet, 
had Smith been the name, I never should have laughed at or 
remarked it.) Presently by his side clambered a green-coated 
policeman with his carbine, and we had a talk about the vitriol- 


348 


THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK 


throwers at Cork, and the sentence just passed upon them. The 
populace has decidedly taken part with the vitriol-throwers : parties 
of dragoons were obliged to surround the avenues of the court ; and 
the judge who sentenced them was abused as he entered his carriage, 
and called an old villain, and many other opprobrious names. 

This case the reader very likely remembers. A saw-mill was 
established at Cork, by which some four hundred sawyers were 
thrown out of employ. In order to deter the proprietors of this 
and all other mills from using such instruments further, the sawyers 
determined to execute a terrible vengeance, and cast lots among 
tliemselves which of their body sliould fling vitriol into the faces 
of the mill-owners. The men who were chosen by the lot were 
to execute this horrible office on pain of death, and did so, — fright- 
fully burning and blinding one of the gentlemen owning the mill. 
Great rewards were offered for the apprehension of the criminals, 
and at last one of their own body came forward as an approver, and 
the four principal actors in this dreadful outrage were sentenced to 
be transported for life. Crowds of the ragged admirers of these 
men were standing round “ tlie magnificent county court-house ” as 
we passed the building. Ours is a strange life indeed. What a 
history of poverty and barbarity, and crime, and even kindness, was 
that by which we passed before the magnificent county court-house, 
at eight miles an hour ! What a chapter might a philosopher write 
on them ! Look yonder at those two hundred ragged fellow-subjects 
of yours : they are kind, good, pious, brutal, starving. If the priest 
tells them, there is scarce any penance they will not perform ; there 
is scarcely any pitch of misery which they have not been known to 
endure, nor any degree of generosity of which they are not capable : 
but if a man comes among these people, and can afford to take 
land over their heads, or if he invents a machine which can work 
more economically than their labour, they will shoot the man down 
without mercy, murder him, or put him to horrible tortures, and 
glory almost in what they do. There stand the men; they are 
only separated from us by a few paces : they are as fond of their 
mothers and children as we are ; their gratitude for small kind- 
nesses shown to them is extraorrlinary ; they are Christians as we 
are ; but interfere with their interests, and they Avill murder you 
without pity. 

It is not revenge so much which these poor fellows take, as a 
brutal justice of their own. Now, will it seem a paradox to say, 
in regard to them and their murderous system, that the way to put 
an end to the latter is to hill them no more I Let the priest be 
able to go amongst them and say. The law holds a man’s life so 
sacred that it will on no account take it away. No man, nor body 


INNISHANNON 


349 

of men, has a right to meddle with human life : not the Commons 
of England any more than the Commons of Tipperary. This may 
cost two or three lives, probably, until sucli time as tlie system may 
come to be known and understood : but whicli will be the greatest 
economy of blood in the end 1 

By this time the vitriol-men were long passed away, and we 
began next to talk about the Cork and London steamboats ; which 
are made to pay, on account of the number of paupers whom the 
boats bring over from London at the charge of that city. The 
passengers found here, as in everything else almost which I have 
seen as yet, another instance of the injury which England inflicts on 
them. “ As long as these men arc strong and can work,” says one, 
“ you keep them ; when they are in bad health, you fling them 
upon us.” Nor could I convince him that the agi'icultural gentle- 
men were perfectly free to stay at home if tliey liked : that we did 
for them what was done for English paupers — sent them, namely, 
as far as possible on tlie way to their parishes ; nay, that some of 
them (as I have seen with my own eyes) actually saved a bit of 
money during the harvest, and took this cheap way of conveying it 
and themselves to their homes again. But nothing would convince 
the gentleman that there was not some wicked scheming on the 
part of the English in the business ; and, indeed, I find upon almost 
every other subject a peevish and puerile suspiciousness which is 
worthy of France itself. 

By this time we came to a pretty village called Innishannon, 
upon the noble banks of the Bandon river ; leading for three miles 
by a great number of pleasant gentlemen’s seats to Bandon town. 
A good number of large mills were on the banks of the stream ; 
and the chief part of them, as in Carlow, useless. One mill we saw 
was too small for the owner’s great speculations ; and so he built 
another and larger one : the big mill cost him <£10,000, for which 
his brothers went security ; and, a lawsuit being given against the 
mill-owner, the two mills stopped, the two brothers went oft‘, and 
yon fine old house, in the style of Anne, witli terraces and tall 
chimneys — one of the oldest country-houses I have seen in Ireland 
— is now inhabited by the natural son of the mill-owner, who has 
more such interesting progeny. Then we came to a tall comfortable 
house, in a plantation ; opposite to which was a stone castle, in its 
shrubberies on the other side of the road. The tall house in the 
plantation shot the opposite side of the road in a duel, and nearly 
killed him ; on which the opposite side of the road built this castle, 
in order to plague the tall house. They are good friends now ; 
but the opposite side of the road ruined himself in building his 
house. I asked, “ Is the house finished ? ” — “ A good deal of it isf 


350 


THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK 


was the answer. — And then we came to a brewery, about which 
was a similar story of extravagance and ruin ; but, whether before 
or after entering Bandon, does not matter. 

We did not, it appears, pass through the best part of Bandon : 
I looked along one side of the houses in the long street through 
which we went, to see if there was a window without a broken pane 
of glass, and can declare on my conscience that every single window 
had three broken panes. There we changed horses, in a market- 
place, surrounded, as usual, by beggars ; then^w^e passed through a 
suburb still more wretched and ruinous than the first street, and 
wiiicli, in very large letters, is called Doyle Street : and the next 
stage w^as at a place called Dunmanway. 

Here it was market-day, too, and, as usual, no lack of attendants : 
swarms of peasants in their blue cloaks, squatting by their stalls here 
and there. There is a little miserable old market-house, where a 
few women w^ere selling buttermilk ; another, bullocks’ hearts, liver, 
and such like scraps of meat; another had dried mackerel on a 
board ; and plenty of people huckstering, of course. Round the 
coach came crowds of raggery, and blackguards fawuiing for money. 
I wmnder wiio gives them any ! I have never seen any one give yet ; 
and were they not even so numerous that it W'ould be impossible to 
gratify them all, there is something in their cant and supplications 
to the Lord so disgusting to me, that I could not give a halfpenny. 

In regard of pretty faces, male or female, this road is very 
ujifavourable. I have not seen one for fifty miles ; though, as it 
w^as market-day all along the road, we have had the opportunity to 
examine vast numbers of countenances. The w^omen are, for the 
most part, stunted, short, with flat Tartar faces ; and the men no 
handsomer. Every woman has bare legs, of course ; and as the 
w^eather is fine, they are sitting outside their cabins, with the pig, 
and the geese, and the children sporting around. 

Before many doors w^e saw^ a little flock of these useful animals, 
and the family pig almost everywhere : you might see him browsing 
and poking along the hedges, his fore and hind leg attached with a 
wisp of hay to check his propensity to roaming. Here and there 
were a small brood of turkeys ; now and then a couple of sheep or a 
single one grazing upon a scanty field, of wdiich the chief crop seemed 
to be thistles and stones ; and, by the side of the cottage, the 
potato-field ahvays. 

The character of the landscape for the most part is bare and 
sad ; except here and there in the neighbourhood of the towns, 
where people have taken a fancy to plant, and where nature has 
helped them, as it almost always wull in this country. If w^e saw 
a field wuth a good hedge to it, we were sure to see a good crop 


THE ROAD FROM CORK TO BANTRY 351 


inside. Many a field was there that Ijad neither croj) nor hedge. 
We passed by and over many pretty streams, running bright through 
brilliant emerald meadows : and I saw a thousand charming pictures, 
'Nvhich want as yet an Irish Berghem. A bright road winding up a 
hill ; on it a country cart, with its load, stretching a huge shadow ; 
the before-mentioned emerald pastures and silver rivers in the fore 
ground : a noble sweep of hills rising up from them, and contrasting 
their magnificent purple with the green ; in the extreme distance 
the clear cold outline of some far-off mountains, and the white clouds 
tumbled about in the blue sky overhead. It has no doubt struck 
all persons wlio love to look at nature, how different the skies 
are in different countries. I fancy Irish or French clouds are as 
characteristic as Irish or French landscapes. It would be well to 
have a daguerreotype and get a series of each. Some way beyond 
Dunmanway the road takes us through a noble savage country of 
rocks and heath. Nor must the painter forget long black tracts of 
bog here and there, and the water glistening brightly at the places 
where the turf has been cut away. Add to this, and chiefly by the 
banks of rivers, a ruined old castle or two : some were built by the 
Danes, it is said. The O’Connors, the O’Mahonys, the O’Driscolls, 
were lords of many others, and their ruined towers may be seen here 
and along the sea. 

Near Dunmanway that great coach, “ The Skibbereen Industry,” 
dashed by us at seven miles an hour ; a wondrous vehicle ; there 
were gaps between every one of the panels ; you -could see daylight 
through-and-through it. Like our machine, it was full, with three 
complementary sailors on the roof, as little harness as possible to 
the horses, and as long stages as horses can well endure ; ours were 
each eighteen-mile stages. About eight miles from Skibbereen a 
one-horse car met us, and carried away an offshoot of passengers to 
Bantry. Five passengers and their luggage, and a very wild steep 
road : all this had one poor little pony to overcome ! About the 
towns there were some show of gentlemen’s cars, smart and well 
appointed, and on the road great numbers of country carts; an 
army of them met us coming from Skibbereen, and laden with grey 
sand for manure. 

Before you enter the city of Skibbereen, the tall new poor- 
house presents itself to the eye of tlie traveller; of the common 
model, being a bastard-Gothic edifice, with a profusion of cottage- 
orn^e (is cottage mascidine or feminine in French?) — of cottage- 
orn^e roofs, and pinnacles, and insolent-looking stacks of chimneys. 
It is built for nine hundred people, but as yet not more tlian four 
hundred have been induced to live in it ; the beggars preferring the 
freedom of their precarious trade to the dismal certainty within 


352 


THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK 


its walls. Next we come to the chapel, a very large respectable- 
looking building of dark-grey stone ; and presently, behold, by the 
crowd of blackguards in waiting, “ The Skibbereen Perseverance ” 
has found its goal, and you are inducted to the “ hotel ” opposite. 

Some gentlemen were at the coach, besides those of lower 
degree. Here was a fat fellow with large whiskers, a geranium, 
and a cigar ; yonder a tall handsome old man that I would swear 
was a dragoon on half-pay. He had a little cap, a Taglioni coat, 
a pair of beautiful spaniels, and a pair of knee-breeches which 
showed a very handsome old leg ; and his object seemed to be to 
invite everybody to dinner as they got off the coach. No doubt he 
has seen the “ Skibbereen Perseverance ” come in ever since it was 
a “ Perseverance.” It is Avonderful to think Avhat will interest men 
in prisons or country towns ! 

There is a dirty coffee-room, with a strong smell of whisky; 
indeed three young “ materialists ” are employed at the moment : 
and I hereby beg to offer an apology to three other gentlemen — 
the captain, another, and the gentleman of the geranium, who had 
caught hold of a sketching-stool which is my property, and were 
stretching it, and sitting upon it, and wondering, and talking of 
it, when the OAvner came in, and they bounced off to their seats 
like so many schoolboys. Dirty as the place Avas, this AA^as no 
reason Avhy it should not produce an exuberant dinner of trout and 
Kerry mutton ; after Avhich Dan the Avaiter, holding up a dingy 
decanter, asks hoAv much whisky I’d have. 

That calculation need not be made here ; and if a man sleeps 
well, has he any need to quarrel AAuth the appointments of his 
bedroom, and spy out the deficiencies of the land? As it Avas 
Sunday, it Avas impossible for me to say Avhat sort of shops “ the 
active and flourishing to\Am ” of Skibbereen contains. There were 
some of the architectural sort, viz. Avith gilt letters and cracked 
mouldings, and others into which I thought I saw the cows Avalk- 
ing; but it was only into their little cribs and paddocks at the 
back of the shops. There is a trim Wesleyan chapel, Avithout any 
broken AAdndows ; a neat churcli standing modestly on one side. The 
Lower Street crawls along the river to a considerable extent, having 
by-streets and boulevards of cabins here and there. 

The people came flocking into the place by hundreds, and you 
saw their blue cloaks dotting the road and the bare open plains 
beyond. The men came Avith shoes and stockings to-day, the 
Avomen all bare-legged, and many of them might be seen washing 
their feet in the stream before they Avent up to the chapel. The 
street seemed to be lined on either side Avith blue cloaks, squatting 
along the doorways as is their wont. Among these, numberless 


SKIBBEREEN 


353 


cows were walking to and fro, and pails of milk passing, and here 
and there a hound or two went stalking about. Dan the waiter 
says they are hunted by the handsome old captain who was yester- 
day inviting everybody to dinner. 

Anybody at eight o’clock of a Sunday morning in summer may 
behold the above scene from a bridge just outside the town. He 
may add to it the river, with one or two barges lying idle upon it ; 
a flag flying at what looks like a custom-house ; bare country all 
around ; and the chapel before him, with a swarm of the dark figures 
round about it. 

I- went into it, not without awe (for, as I confessed before, I 
always feel a sort of tremor on going into a Catholic place of 
worship : the candles, and altars, and mysteries, the priest and his 
robes, and nasal chanting, and wonderful genuflections, will frighten 
me as long as I live). The chapel-yard was filled with men and 
women : a couple of shabby old beadles were at the gate, with copper 
shovels to collect money ; and inside the chapel four or five hundred 
people were on their knees, and scores more of the blue-mantles came 
in, dropping their curtseys as they entered, and then taking their 
places on the flags. 

And now the pangs of hunger beginning to make themselves felt, 
it became necessary for your humble servant (after making several 
useless applications to a bell, which properly declined to work on 
Sundays) to make a personal descent to the inn-kitchen, where was 
not a bad study for a painter. It was a huge room, with a peat fire 
burning, and a staircase walking up one side of it, on which stair 
was a damsel in a partial though by no means picturesque dishabille. 
The cook had just come in with a great frothing pail of milk, and sat 
with her arms folded ; the ostler’s boy sat dangling his legs from the 
table ; the ostler was dandling a noble little boy of a year old, at 
whom Mrs. Cook likewise grinned delighted. Here, too, sat Mr. Dan 
the waiter ; and no wonder the breakfast was delayed, for all three 
of these worthy domestics seemed delighted with the infant. 

He was handed over to the gentleman’s arms for the space of 
thirty seconds ; the gentleman being the father of a family, and of 
course an amateur. 

“ Say Dan for the gentleman,” says the delighted cook. 

“ Dada,” says the baby ; at which the assembly grinned with 
joy : and Dan promised I should have my breakfast “ in a hurry.” 

But of all the wonderful things to be seen in Skibbereen, Dan’s 
pantry is the most wonderful : every article within is a makeshift, 
and has been ingeniously perverted from its original destination. 
Here lie bread, blacking, fresh butter, tallow-candles, dirty knives — • 
all in the same cigar-box with snuff, milk, cold bacon, brown sugar, 
5 z 


354 > 


THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK 


broken teacups, and bits of soap. No pen can describe that estab- 
lishment as no English imagination could have conceived it. But 
lo ! the sky has cleared after a furious fall of rain — in compliance 
with Dan’s statement to that effect, “that the weatlier would be 
fine,” — and a car is waiting to carry us to Loughine. 

Although the description of Loughine can make but a poor 
figure in a book, the ride thither is well worth the traveller’s short 
labour. You pass by one of the cabin-streets out of the town into 
a country which for a mile is rich with grain, though bare of trees ; 
then through a boggy bleak district, from which you enter into a 
sort of sea of rocks, with patches of herbage liere and there. Before 
the traveller, almost all the way, is a huge pile of purple mountain, 
on which, as one comes nearer, oim perceives numberless waves and 
breaks, as you see small waves on a billow in the sea ; then clamber- 
ing up a hill, we look down upon a bright green flat of land, with 
the lake beyond it, girt round by grey melancholy hills. The water 
may be a mile in extent ; a cabin tops the mountain here and there ; 
gentlemen have erected one or two anchorite pleasure-houses on the 
banks, as cheerful as a summer-house would be on Salisbury Plain, 
I felt not sorry to have seen this lonely lake, and still happier to 
leave it. There it lies with crags all round it, in the midst of 
desolate plains ; it escapes somewhere to the sea ; its waters are 
salt ; half-a-dozen boats lie here and there upon its banks, and we 
saw a small crew of boys plashing about and swimming in it, laughing 
and yelling. It seemed a shame to disturb the silence so. 

The crowd of swaggering “gents” (I don’t know the correspond- 
ing phrase in the Anglo-Irish vocabulary to express a shabby dandy) 
awaiting the Cork mail, which kindly goes twenty miles out of its 
way to accommodate the town of Skibbereen, was quite extraordinary. 
The little street was quite blocked up with shabby gentlemen, and 
shabby beggars, awaiting this daily phenomenon. The man who 
had driven us to Loughine did not fail to ask for his fee as driver ; 
and then, having received it, came forward in his capacity of boots 
and received another remuneration. The ride is desolate, bare, and 
yet beautiful. There are a set of hills that keep one company the 
whole way ; they were partially hidden in a grey sky, which flung 
a general hue of melancholy too over the green country through 
which we passed. There was only one wretched village along the 
road, but no lack of population : ragged people who issued from 
their cabins as the coach passed, or were sitting by the wayside. 
Everybody seems sitting by the wayside here : one never sees this 
general repose in England — a sort of ragged lazy contentment. All 
the children seem to be on the watch for the coach ; waited very 
knowingly and carefully their opportunity, and then hung on by 


BANTRY 


355 


scores behind. What a pleasure to run over flinty roads with bare 
feet, to be v^^hipped off, and to walk back to the cabin again ! 
These were very different cottages to those neat ones I liad seen in 
Kildare. The wretchedness of them is quite painful to look at ; 
many of the potato-gardens were half dug up, and it is only the 
first week in August, near three months before the potato is ripe 
and at full growth ; and the winter still six months away. There 
were chapels occasionally, and smart new-built churches — one of 
them has a congregation of ten souls, tlie coachman told me. 
Would it not be better that the clergyman should receive them in 
his room, and that the church-building money should be bestowed 
otherwise 1 

At length, after winding up all sorts of dismal hills speckled 
with wretched hovels, a ruinous mill every now and then, black 
bog-lands, and small winding streams, breaking here and there into 
little falls, we come upon some ground well tilled and planted, and 
descending (at no small risk from stumbling horses) a bleak long 
hill, we see the water before us, and turning to the right by the 
handsome little park of Lord Bearhaven, enter Bantry. The 
harbour is beautiful. Small mountains in green undulations rising 
on the opposite side ; great grey ones farther back ; a pretty island 
in the midst of the water, which is wonderfully bright and calm. 
A handsome yacht, and two or three vessels with their Sunday 
colours out, w’ere lying in the bay. It looked like a seaport scene 
at a theatre, gay, cheerful, neat, and picturesque. At a little 
distance the town, too, is very pretty. There are some smart 
houses on the quays, a handsome court-house as usual, a fine large 
hotel, and plenty of people flocking round the w^onderful coach. 

The town is most picturesquely situated, climbing up a wooded 
hill, with numbers of neat cottages here and there, an ugly church 
wdth an air of pretension, and a large grave Roman Catholic chapel 
the higliest point of the place. The Main Street w^as as usual 
thronged wdth the squatting blue cloaks, carrying on their eager 
trade of butter-milk and green apples, and such cheap wmres. With 
the exception of this street and the quay, with their whitew^ashed 
and slated houses, it is a towm of cabins. The WTetchedness of 
some of them is quite curious : I tried to make a sketch of a row 
wdiich lean against an old w^all, and are built upon a rock that 
tumbles about in the oddest and most fantastic shapes, with a 
brawling w^aterfall dashing down a channel in the midst. These 
are, it appears, the beggars’ houses : any one may build a lodge 
against that w\all, rent-free ; and such places were never seen ! As 
for drawing them, it w^as in vain to try ; one might as w* ell make 
a sketch of a bundle of rags. An ordinary pig-sty in England is 


356 


THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK 


really more comfortable. Most of them were not six feet long or 
five feet high, built of stones huddled together, a hole being left for 
the people to creep in at, a ruined thatch to keep out some little 
portion of the rain. The occupiers of these places sat at their 
doors in tolerable contentment, or the children came down and 
washed their feet in the water. I declare I believe a Hottentot 
kraal has more comforts in it ; even to wTite of the place makes one 
unhappy, and the words move slow. But in the midst of all this 
misery there is an air of actual cheerfulness ; and go but a few score 
yards off, and these wretched hovels lying together look really 
picturesque and pleasing. 


CHAPTER IX 

RAINY DAYS AT GLENGARIFF 


A SMART two-horse car takes the traveller thrice a week from 
Baiitry to Killarney, by way of Glengariff and Ken mare. 
Unluckily, the rain was pouring down furiously as we 
passed to tlie first-named places, and we had only opportunity to 
see a part of the astonishing beauty of the country. What sends 
picturesque, tourists to the Rliine and Saxon Switzerland ^ within 
five miles round the pretty inn of Glengariff there is a countiy of 
the magnificence of which no pen can give an idea. I would like 
to be a great prince, and bring a train of painters over to make, 
if they could, and according to their several capabilities, a set of 
pictures of the place. Mr. Greswick would find such rivulets and 
waterfalls, surrounded by a luxuriance of foliage and verdure that 
only liis pencil can imitate. As for Mr. Cattcrmole, a red-shanked 
Irishman should carry his sketching-books to all sorts of wild noble 
heights, and vast rocky valleys, where he might please liimself by 
piling crag upon crag, and by introducing, if he had a mind, some 
of the wild figures which peopled this country in old days. There 
is the Eagles’ Nest, for instance, regarding wliich the Guide-book 
gives a pretty legend. The Prince of Bantry being conquered by 
the English soldiers, fled away, leaving his Princess and children to 
the care of a certain faithful follower of liis, who was to provide 
them with refuge and food. But the wliole country was overrun 
by the conquerors; all the flocks driven away by them, all tlie 
houses ransacked, and the crops burnt off the ground, and the faith- 
ful servitor did not know where lie should find a meal or a resting- 
place for the unhappy Princess O’Donovan. 

He made, however, a sort of shed by the side of a mountain, 
composing it of sods and stones so artfully that no one could tell 
but that it was a part of the hill itself ; and here, having speared or 
otherwise obtained a salmon, he fed their Highnesses for the first day ; 
trusting to Heaven for a meal when the salmon should be ended. 

The Princess O’Donovan and her princely family soon came to 
an end of the fish ; and cried out for something more. 

So the faithful servitor, taking with him a rope and his little 


358 


THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK 


son Sliamus, mounted up to the peak where the eagles rested ; and, 
from the spot to which he climbed, saw their nest, and the young 
eaglets in it, in a cleft below the precipice. 

“ Now,” said he, “ Shanius my sou, you must take these thongs 
with you, and I will let you down by the rope ” (it was a straw-rope, 
which he had made himself, and though it might be considered a 
dangerous thread to hang by in other countries, you’ll see plenty of 
such contrivances in Ireland to the present day). 

“ I will let you down by the rope, and you must tie the thongs 
round the necks of the eaglets, not so as to choke them, but to pre- 
vent them from swallowing much.” So Shamus went down and did 
as his father bade him, and came up again when the eaglets w^ere 
doctored. 

Presently the eagles came home : one bringing a rabbit and the 
other a grouse. These they dropped into the nest for the young 
ones ; and soon after went away in quest of other adventures. 

Then Shamus went down into the eagles’ nest again, gutted the 
grouse and rabbit, and left the garbage to the eaglets (as was their 
right), and brought away the rest. And so the Princess and Princes 
had game that night for their supper. How long they lived in this 
way, tlie Guide-book does not say : but let us trust that the Prince, 
if he did not come to his own again, was at least restored to his 
family and decently mediatised : and, for my part, I have very little 
doubt but that Shamus, the gallant young eagle-robber, created a 
favourable impression upon one of the young princesses, and (after 
many adventures in which he distinguished himself), was accepted 
by her Highness for a husband, and her princely parents for a gallant 
son-in-law. 

And here, while we are travelling to Glengariff, and ordering 
painters about with such princely liberality (by the way, Mr. Stan- 
field should have a boat in the bay, and paint both rock and sea at 
his ease), let me mention a wonderful awful incident of real life which 
occurred on the road. About four miles from Bantry, at a beautiful 
wooded place, hard by a mill and waterfall, up rides a gentleman to 
the car with his luggage, going to Killarney races. The luggage 
consisted of a small carpet-bag and a pistol-case. About two miles 
farther on, a fellow stops the car : “ Joe,” says he, “ my master is 
going to ride to Killarney, so you please to take his luggage.” The 
luggage consisted of a small carpet-bag, and — a pistol-case as before. 
Is this a gentleman’s usual travelling baggage in Ireland 1 

As there is more rain in this country than in any other, and as, 
therefore, naturally the inhabitants should be inured to the weather, 
and made to despise an inconvenience which they cannot avoid, the 
travelling conveyances are arranged so that you may get as much 


GLENGARIFF 


359 

practice in being wet as possible. The traveller’s baggage is stowed in 
a place between the two rows of seats, and which is not inaptly called 
the well, as in a rainy season you might possibly get a bucketful of 
water out of that orifice. And I confess I saw, with a horrid satis- 
faction, the pair of pistol-cases lying in this moist aperture, with 
water pouring above them and lying below them ; nay, prayed that 
all such weapons might one day be consigned to the same fate. But 
as the waiter at Bantry, in his excessive zeal to serve me, had sent 
my portmanteau back to Cork by the coach, instead of allowing me 
to carry it with me to Killarney, and as the rain had long since 
begun to insinuate itself under the seat-cushion, and through the 
waterproof apron of the car, I dropped off at Glengariff, and dried 
the only suit of clothes I had by the kitchen-fire. The inn is very 
jjretty : some thorn-trees stand before it, where many bare-legged 
people were lolling, in spite of the weather. A beautiful bay 
stretches out before the house, the full tide washing the thorn-trees ; 
mountains rise on either side of tlie little bay, and there is an island, 
with a castle on it in the midst, near which a yacht was moored. 
But the mountains were hardly visible for the mist, and the yacht, 
island, and castle looked as if they had been washed against the flat 
grey sky in Indian-ink. 

The day did not clear up sufficiently to allow me to make any 
long excursion about the place, or indeed to see a very wide prospect 
round about it : at a few hundred yards, most of the objects were 
enveloped in mist ; but even this, for a lover of the picturesque, had 
its beautiful effect, for you saw the hills in the foreground pretty 
clear, and covered with their wonderful green, while immediately 
behind them rose an immense blue mass of mist and mountain that 
served to relieve (to use the painter’s phrase) the nearer objects. 
Annexed to the hotel is a flourishing garden, where the vegetation is 
so great that the landlord told me it was all he could do to check 
the trees from growing ; round about the bay, in several places, they 
come clustering down to the water’s edge, nor does the salt-water 
interfere with them. 

Winding up a hill to the right, as you quit the inn, is the 
beautiful road to the cottage and park of Lord Bantry. One or 
two parties on pleasure bent went so far as the house, and were 
partially consoled for the dreadful rain which presently poured down 
upon them, by wine, whisky, and refreshments which the liberal 
owner of the house sent out to them. I myself had only got a few 
hundred yards when the rain overtook me, and sent me for refuge 
into a shed, where a blacksmith had arranged a rude furnace and 
bellows, and where he was at work, with a rough gilly to help him, 
and of course a lounger or two to look on. 


360 


THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK 


The scene wlls exceedingly wild and x^icturesque, and I took out 
a sketch-book and began to draw. The blacksmith was at first 
very suspicious of the operation which I had commenced, nor did 
the poor fellow’s sternness at all yield until I made him a present 
of a shilling to buy tobacco — when he, his friend, and his son 
became good-humoured, and said their little say. This was the 
first shilling he had earned these three years : he was a small 
farmer, but was starved out, and had set up a forge here, and was 
trying to get a few X3ence. What struck me was the great number 
of people about the place. We had at least twenty visits while 
the sketch was being made : cars, and single and double horsemen, 
were continually passing; between the intervals of the shower a 
couple of ragged old women would creep out from some hole and 
display baskets of green apples for sale : wet or not, men and 
women were lounging up and down the road. You would have 
thought it was a fiiir, and yet there was not even a village at this 
place, only the inn and post-house, by which the cars to Tralee pass 
thrice a week. 

The weather, instead of mending, on the second day was worse 
than ever. All the view had disappeared now under a rushing rain, 
of which I never saw anything like the violence. We were visited 
by five maritime — nay, buccaneering-looking gentlemen in mous- 
taches, with fierce caps and jackets, just landed from a yaclit : and 
then the car brouglit us three Englishmen wet to the skin and 
thirsting for whisky-and- water. 

And with these three Englishmen a great scene occurred, such 
as we read of in Smollett’s and Fielding’s inns. One was a fat old 
gentleman from Cambridge — who, I was informed, was a Fellow 
of a College in that University, but whom I shrewdly suspect * 
to be butler or steward of the same. The younger men, burly, 
manly, good-humoured fellows of seventeen stone, Tvere the nephews 
of the elder — who, says one, “ could draw a cheque for his thousand 
I)ounds.” 

Two-and-twenty years before, on landing at the Pigeon-House at 
Dublin, the old gentleman had been cheated by a carman, and his 
firm opinion seemed to be that all carmen — nay, all Irishmen — 
were cheats. 

And a sad proof of this depravity speedily showed itself: for 
having hired a three-horse car at Killarney, which was to carry them 
to Bantry, the Englishmen saw, with immense indignation, after 
tiiey liad drunk a series of glasses of whisky, that the three-horse 
car had been removed, a one-horse vehicle standing in its stead. 

* The suspicion turned out to be correct. The gentleman is the respected 
cook of C , as I learned afterwards from a casual Cambridge man. 


THREE ENGLISH TOURISTS 


361 


Their wrath no pen can describe. “ I tell you they are all 
so ! ” shouted the elder. “ When I landed at the Pigeon-House — ” 
“ Bring me a post-chaise ! ” roars the second. “ Waiter, get some 
more whisky ! ” exclaims the third. “ If they don’t send us on 
with three horses, I’ll stop here for a week.” Then issuing, with 
his two young friends, into the passage to harangue the popu- 
lace assembled there, the elder Englishman began a speech about 

dishonesty, “ d d rogues and thieves, Pigeon-House : he was a 

gentleman, and wouldn’t be done, d his eyes and everybody’s 

eyes.” Upon the affrighted landlord, who came to interpose, they 
all fell with great ferocity : the elder man swearing, especially, 
that he “ would write to Lord Lansdowne regarding his conduct, 
likewise to Lord Bandon, also to Lord Bantry: he was a gentleman; 
he’d been cheated in the year 1815, on his first landing at the 

Pigeon-House : and, d the Irish, they were all alike.” After 

roaring and cursing for half-an-hour, a gentleman at the door, seeing 
the meek bearing of the landlord — who stood quite lost and power- 
less in the whirlwind of rage that had been excited about his luckless 
ears — said, “ If men cursed and swore in that way in his house, he 
would know how to put them out.” 

“ Put me out 1 ” says one of the young men, placing himself 
before the fat old blasphemer his relative. “ Put me out, my fine 
fellow ! ” But it was evident the Irishman did not like his 
customer. “ Put me out ! ” roars the old gentleman, from behind 

his young protector. ‘‘U my eyes, who are you, sir? who are 

you, sir 1 I insist on knowing who you are 1 ” 

“ And who are you ” asks the Irishman. 

“ Sir, I’m a gentleman, and ^ 

get into Bantry, I swear I'll write a letter to Lord Bandon Bantry, 
and complain of the treatment I have received here.” 

Now, as the unhappy landlord had not said one single word, 
and as, on the contrarjq to the annoyance of the whole house, the 
stout old gentleman from Cambridge had been shouting, raging, and 
cursing for two hours, I could not help, like a great ass as I was, 
coming forward and (thinking the landlord might be a tenant of 
Lord Bantry’s) saying, “ Well, sir, if you write and say the landlord 
has behaved ill, I will write to say that he has acted with extra- 
ordinary forbearance and civility.” 

0 fool ! to interfere in disputes where one set of the disputants 
have drunk half-a-dozen glasses of whisky in the middle of the 
day ! No sooner had I said this than the other young man came 
and fell upon me, and in the course of a few minutes found leisure 
to tell me that I was no gentleman ; that I was ashamed to give 
my name, or say where I lived ; that I was a liar, and didn’t live 


362 


THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK 


in London, and couldn’t mention the name of a single respectable 
person there ; that he was a merchant and tradesman, and hid his 
quality from no one ; ” and, finally, “ that though bigger than him- 
■self, there was nothing he would like better than that I should come 
out on the green and stand to him like a man.” 

This invitation, although repeated several times, I refused with 
as much dignity as I could assume ; partly because I was sober and 
cool, while the other was furious and drunk ; also because I felt a 
strong suspicion that in about ten minutes the man would manage 
to give me a tremendous beating, which I did not merit in the least; 
thirdly, because a victory over him would not have been productive 
of the least pleasure to me ; and lastly, because there was something 
really honest and gallant in the fellow coming out to defend his old 
relative. Both of the younger men would have fought like tigers 
for this disreputable old gentleman, and desired no better sport. 
The last I heard of the three was that they and the driver made 
their appearance before a magistrate in Bantry ; and a pretty story 
will the old man have to tell to his club at the “ Hoop,” or the 
“ Red Lion,” of those swindling Irish, and the ill-treatment he met 
with in their country. 

As for the landlord, the incident will be a blessed theme of con- 
versation to him for a long time to come. I heard him discoursing 
of it in the passage during the rest of the day ; and next morning 
when I opened my window and saw with much delight the bay 
clear and bright as silver — except where the green hills were re- 
flected in it, the blue sky above, and the purple mountains round 
about with only a few clouds veiling their peaks — the first thing I 
heard was the voice of Mr. Eccles repeating the story to a new 
customer. 

“I thought thim couldn’t be gintlemin,” was the appropriate 
remark of Mr. Tom the waiter, “from the way in which they took 
their whishky — raw with cold wather, widout mixing or iny thing. 
Could an Irish waiter give a more excellent definition of the un- 
genteel ? 

At nine o’clock in the morning of the next day, the unlucky 
car which had carried the Englishmen to Bantry came back to 
Glengaritf, and as the morning was very fine, I was glad to take 
advantage of it, and travel some five-and-thirty English miles to 
Killarney. 


CHAPTER X 

FROM GLENGARIFF TO KILLARNEY 

T he Irish car seems accommodated for any number of persons : 
it appeared to be full when w^e left Glengariff, for a traveller 
from Bearhaven, and the five gentlemen from the yacht, took 
seats upon it with myself, and we fancied it was impossible more 
than seven should travel by such a conveyance; but the driver 
showed the capabilities of his vehicle presently. The journey from 
Glengariff to Kenmare is one of astonishing beauty; and I have 
seen Killarney since, and am sure that Glengariff loses nothing by 
comparison with this most famous of lakes. Rock, wood, and sea 
stretch around the traveller — a thousand delightful pictures : the 
landscape is at first wild without being fierce, immense woods and 
plantations enriching the valleys — beautiful streams to be seen 
everywhere. 

Here again I was surprised at the great population along the 
road ; for one saw but few cabins, and there is no village between 
Glengariff and Kenmare. But men and women were on banks and 
in fields ; children, as usual, came trooping up to the car ; and the 
jovial men of the yaclit had long conversations with most of the 
persons whom we met on the road. A merrier set of fellows it 
were hard to meet. “Should you like anything to drink, sir"?” 
says one, commencing the acquaintance. “We have the best 
whisky in the world, and plenty of porter in the basket.” There- 
with the jolly seamen produced a great bottle of grog, wdiich was 
passed round from one to another ; and then began singing, shout- 
ing, laughing, roaring, for tlie wTole journey. “British sailors 
have a knack, pull away — ho, boys ! ” “ Hurroo, my fine fellow ! 

does your mother know you’re out 1 ” “ Hurroo, Tim Herlihy ! 

you’re a Jluke, Tim Herlihy.” One man sang on the roof, one 
hurroo' d to the echo, another apostrophised the aforesaid Herlihy 
as he passed grinning on a car ; a third had a pocket-handkerchief 
flaunting from a pole, with which he performed exercises in the face 
of any horseman whom we met ; and great were their yells as the 
ponies shied off at the salutation and the riders swerved in their 
saddles. In the midst of this rattling chorus we went along : 


364 


THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK 


gradmilly the country grew wilder and more desolate, and we passed 
through a grim mountain region, bleak and bare, the road winding 
round some of the innumerable hills, and once or twice by means of 
a tunnel rushing boldly througli them. One of these tunnels, they 
say, is a couple of hundred yards long; and a pretty howling, I 
need not say, w^as made through that pipe of rock by the jolly 
yacht’s crew. “We saw you sketching in the blacksmith’s shed at 
GlengarifF,” says one, “and we wished we had you on board. Such 
a jolly life we led of it ! ” — They roved about the coast, they said, 
in their vessel ; they feasted off the best of fish, mutton, and 
whisky ; tliey had Gamble’s turtle-soup on board, and fun from 
morning till night, and vice versa. Gradually it came out that 
there was not, owing to the tremendous rains, a dry corner in 
their ship : that they slung two in a huge hammock in the cabin, 
and that one of their crew had beeji ill, and shirked off. What a 
wonderful thing pleasure is ! To be wet all day and night ; to be 
scorched and blistered by the sun and rain ; to beat in and out of 
little harbours, and to exceed diurnally upon whisky-punch — ’faith, 
London, and an arm-chair at the club, are more to the tastes of 
some men. 

After much mountain - work of ascending and descending (in 
which latter operation, and by the side of precipices that make 
passing cockneys rather squeamish, the carman drove like mad to 
the whooping and screeching of the red-rovers), we at length came 
to Keninare, of wliich all that I know is that it lies prettily in a 
bay or arm of the sea ; that it is approached by a little hanging- 
bridge, which seems to be a wonder in these parts ; that it is a 
miserable little place when you enter it ; and that, finally, a 
splendid luncheon of all sorts of meat and excellent cold salmon 
may sometimes be*had for a shilling at the hotel of the place. It 
is a great vacant house, like the rest of them, and would frighten 
people in England ; but after a few days one grows used to the 
Castle Rackrent style. I am not sure that there is not a certain 
sort of comfort to be had in these rambling rooms, and among these 
bustling blundering waiters, which one does not always meet with 
in an orderly English house of entertainment. 

After discussing the luncheon, we found the car with fresh 
horses, beggars, idlers, policemen, &c., standing round, of course; 
and now the miraculous vehicle, which had held hitherto seven 
with some difficulty, was called upon to accommodate thirteen. 

A pretty noise would our three Englishmen of yesterday — nay, 
any other Englishmen for the matter of that — have made, if 
coolly called upon to admit an extra party of four into a mail- 
coach ! The yacht’s crew did not make a single objection ; a 


CAR TO KILLARNEY. 













i j » • ■ . ■ - , ku 

'■ ' 

- t y >: ; 

• u <'k*i 





IVl 





A FULL CAR 


365 


couple clambered up on the roof, where they managed to locate 
themselves with wonderful ingenuity, perched upon hard wooden 
chestSj or agreeably reposing upon the knotted ropes which held 
them together : one of the new passengers scrambled between the 
driver’s legs, where he held on somehow, and the rest were pushed 
and squeezed astonisliingly in the car. 

Now the fact must be told, that five of the new passengers (I 
don’t count a little boy besides) were women, and very pretty, gay, 
frolicsome, lively, kind-hearted, innocent women too ; and for the 
rest of the journey there was no end of laughing and shouting, and 
singing, and hugging, so that the caravan j)resented the appearance 
which is depicted in the opposite engraving. 

Now it may be a wonder to some persons, that with such a 
cargo the carriage did not upset, or some of us did not fall ofi* ; to 
which the answer is that Ave did fall off. A very pretty woman 
fell off, and showed a pair of never-mind-what-coloured garters, and 
an interesting English traveller fell off too : but Heaven bless you ! 
these cars are made to fall off from ; and considering the circum- 
stances of the case, and in tlie same company, I would rather fall 
off than not. A great number of polite allusions and genteel 
inquiries Avere, as may be imagined, made by the jolly boat’s creAv. 
But though the lady affected to be a little angry at first, she Avas far 
too good-natured to be angry long, and at last fairly burst out laugh- 
ing AA’ith the passengers. We did not fall off again, but held on 
very tight, and just as Ave Avere reaching Killarney, saAv somebody 
else fall off from another car. But in this instance the gentleman 
liad no lady to tumble Avith. 

For almost half the Avay from Kenmare, this wild beautiful 
road commands views of the famous lake and A’ast blue mountains 
about Killarney. Turk, Tomies, and Mangerton Avere clothed in 
purple like kings in mourning ; great heavy clouds were gathered 
round their heads, parting away every now and then, and leaving 
their noble features bare. The lake lay for some time underneath 
us, dark and blue, Avith dark misty islands in the midst. On the 
right-hand side of the road Avould be a precipice covered Avith a 
thousand trees, or a green rocky flat, Avith a reedy mere in the 
midst, and other mountains rising as far as we could see. I think 
of that diabolical tune in “ Her Freischiitz ” Avhile passing through 
this sort of country. Every now and then, in the midst of some 
fresh country or enclosed trees, or at a turn of the road, you lose 
the sight of the great big aAvful mountain : but, like the aforesaid 
tune in “Her Freischiitz,” it is alAAmys there close at hand. You 
feel that it keeps you company. And so it was that we rode 
by dark old Mangerton, then presently past Muckross, and then 


366 


THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK 


through two miles of avenues of lime-trees, by numerous lodges 
and gentlemen’s seats, across an old bridge, where you see the 
mountains again and the lake, until, by Lord Kenmare’s house, a 
hideous row of houses informed us that we were at Killarney. 

Here my companion suddenly let go my hand, and by a certain 
uneasy motion of the waist, gave me notice to withdraw the other 
too ; and so we rattled up to the “ Kenmare Arms ” : and so ended, 
not without a sigh on my part, one of the merriest six-hour rides 
that five yachtsmen, one cockney, five women and a child, the 
carman, and a countryman with an alpeen, ever took in their 
lives. 

As for my fellow-companion, she would hardly speak the next 
day ; but all the five maritime men made me vow and promise that 
I would go and see them at Cork, where I should have horses to 
ride, the fastest yacht out of the harbour to sail in, and the best of 
whisky, claret, and welcome. Amen, and may every single person 
who buys a copy of this book meet with the same deserved fate ! 

The town of Killarney was in a violent state of excitement with 
a series of horse-races, hurdle-races, boat-races, and stag-hunts by 
land and water, which were taking place, and attracted a vast crowd 
from all parts of the kingdom. All the inns were full, and lodgings 
cost five shillings a day — nay, more in some places ; for though my 
landlady, Mrs. Macgillicuddy, charges but that sum, a leisurely old 
gentleman whom I never saw in my life before made my acquaintance 
by stopping me in the street yesterday, and said he paid a pound 
a day for his two bedrooms. The old gentleman is eager for 
company; and indeed, when a man travels alone, it is wonderful 
how little he cares to select his society ; how indifferent company 
pleases him ; how a good fellow delights him ; how sorry he is when 
the time for parting comes, and he has to walk off alone, and begin 
the friendship hunt over again. 

The first sight I witnessed at Killarney was a race-ordinary, 
where, for a sum of twelve shillings, any man could take his share 
of turbot, salmon, venison, and beef, with port, and sherry, and 
whisky-punch at discretion. Here were the squires of Cork and 
Kerry, one or two Englishmen, whose voices amidst the rich 
humming brogue round about sounded quite affected (not that they 
were so, but there seems a sort of impertinence in the shrill, high- 
pitched tone of the English voice here). At the head of the table, 
near the chairman, sat some brilliant young dragoons, neat, solemn, 
dull, with huge moustaches, and boots polished to a nicety. 

And here of course the conversation was of the horse horsey : 
how Mr. Tliis had refused fifteen hundred guineas for a horse which 
he bought for a hundred ; how Bacchus was the best horse in Ireland; 


AN EDINBURGH COCKNEY 367 

which horses were to rim at Something races ; and how the Marquis 
of Waterford gave a plate or a purse. We drank “ the Queen, 
with hip ! hip ! hurrah ! the “ winner of the Kenmare stakes ” — 
hurrali ! Presently the gentleman next me rose and made a speech ; 
he had brought a mare down and won the stakes — a hundred and 
seventy guineas — and I looked at him with a great deal of respect. 
Other toasts ensued, and more talk about horses. Nor am I in the 
least disposed to sneer at gentlemen who like sporting and talk 
about it : for I do believe that the conversation of a dozen fox- 
hunters is just as clever as that of a similar number of merchants, 
barristers, or literary men. But to this trade, as to all others, a 
man must be bred ; if he has not learnt it thoroughly or in early 
life, he will not readily become a proficient afterwards, and when 
therefore the subject is broached, had best maintain a profound 
silence. 

A young Edinburgh cockney, with an easy self-confidence that 
the reader may have perhaps remarked in others of his calling and 
nation, and who evidently knew as much of sporting matters as the 
individual who writes this, proceeded nevertheless to give the com- 
pany his opinions, and greatly astonished them all ; for these simple 
people are at first willing to believe that a stranger is sure to be a 
knowing fellow, and did not seem inclined to be undeceived even by 
this little pert grinning Scotchman. It was good to hear him talk 
of Haddington, Musselburgh — and Heaven knows what strange 
outlandish places, as if they were known to all the world. And 
here would be a good opportunity to enter into a dissertation upon 
national characteristics : to show that the bold sw'aggering Irishman 
is really a modest fellow, while the canny Scot is a most brazen one ; 
to wonder why the inhabitant of one country is ashamed of it — 
which is in itself so fertile and beautiful, and has produced more 
than its fair proportion of men of genius, valour, and wit ; whereas 
it never enters into the head of a Scotchman to question his own 
equality (and something more) at all : but that such discussions 
are quite unprofitable; nay, that exactly the contrary propositions 
may be argued to just as much length. Has the reader ever tried 
with a dozen of De Tocqueville’s short crisp philosophic apophthegms 
and taken the converse of them ? The one or other set of propo- 
sitions will answer equally well ; and it is the best way to avoid all 
such. Let the above passage, then, simply be understood to say, 
that on a certain day the writer met a vulgar little Scotchman — 
not that all Scotchmen are vulgar ; — that this little pert creature 
prattled about his country as if he and it were ornaments to the 
world — which the latter is no doubt; and that one could not but 
contrast his behaviour with that of great big stalwart simple Irish- 


368 


THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK 


men, who asked your opinion of tlieir country Mith as much modesty 
as if you — because an Englishman — must be somebody, and they 
the dust of the earth. 

Indeed this want of self-confidence at times becomes quite pain- 
ful to the stranger. If, in reply to their queries, you say you like 
the country, people seem really quite delighted. Why should they ? 
Why should a stranger’s opinion who doesn’t know tlie country be 
more valued than a native’s who does ? — Suppose an Irishman in 
England were to speak in praise or abuse of the country, would one 
be particularly pleased or annoyed ? One would be glad that the 
man liked his trip ; but as for his good or bad opinion of the 
country, the country stands on its own bottom, superior to any 
opinion of any man or men. 

I must beg pardon of the little Scotchman for reverting to him 
(let it be remembered that there were Scotchmen at Killarney, 
and that I speak of the other one) ; but I have seen no specimen of 
that sort of manners in any Irishman since I liave been in the 
country. I have met more gentlemen here than in any place I ever 
saw ; gentlemen of high and low ranks, that is to say : men shrewd 
and delicate of perception, observant of society, entering into the 
feelings of others, and anxious to set tliem at ease or to gratify 
them ; of course exaggerating their professions of kindness, and in 
so far insincere ; but the very exaggeration seems to be a proof of 
a kindly nature, and I wish in England we were a little more com- 
plimentary. In Dublin, a lawyer left his chambers, and a literary 
man his books, to walk the town with me — the town, which they 
must know a great deal too well : for, pretty as iu is, it is but a 
small place after all, not like that great bustling, changing, strug- 
gling world, the Englishman’s capital. Would a London man leave 
his business to trudge to the Tower or the Park with a stranger? 
We would ask him to dine at the club, or to eat whitebait at Love- 
grove’s, and think our duty done, neither caring for him, nor pro- 
fessing to care for him ; and we pride ourselves on our honesty 
accordingly. Never was lionesty more selfish. And so a vulgar 
man in England disdains to flatter his equals, and chiefly displays 
his character of snob by assuming as mucli as he can for himself, 
swaggering and showing off in iiis coarse, dull, stupid way. 

“ I am a gentleman, and pay my way,” as the old fellow said 
at Glengariff. I have not heard a sentence near so vulgar from any 
man in Ireland. Yes, by the way, there was another Englishman 
at Cork : a man in a middling, not to say humble, situation of life. 
When introduced to an Irish gentleman, his formula seemed to be, 
“ I think, sir, I have met you somewhere before.” “ I am sure, sir, 
I have met you before,” he said, for the second time in my hearing, 


YACHTING ATTORNEYS 


369 

to a gentleman of great note in Ireland. ‘‘ Yes, I have met you at 

Lord X ’s.” “I don’t know my Lord X replied the 

Irishman. “ Sir,” says the other, “ I shall have great j^lcasure in 
introducing you to him.'’' Well, the good-natured simple Irishman 
thought this gentleman a very fine fellow. There was only one, 
of some dozen who spoke about him, that found out Snob. I 
suppose the Spaniards lorded it over the Mexicans in this way : 
their drummers passing for generals among the simple red men, 
their glass beads for jewels, and their insolent bearing for lieroic 
superiority. 

Leaving, tlien, the race-ordinary (that little Scotchman with his 
airs has carried us the deuce knows how far out of the way), I 
came home just as the gentlemen of the race were beginning to 
“mix,” that is, to forsake the wine for the punch. At the lodgings 
I found my five companions of the morning with a bottle of that 
wonderful whisky of which' they spoke; and which they had agreed 
to exchange against a bundle of Liverpool cigars : so we discussed 
them, the whisky, and other topics in common. Now there is no 
need to violate the sanctity of private life, and report tlie conver- 
sation which took place, the songs which were sung, the speeches 
which were made, and the other remarkable events of the evening. 
Suftice it to say, that the English traveller gradually becomes accus- 
tomed to whisky-punch (in moderation of course), and finds the 
beverage very agreeable at Killarney ; against which I recollect a 
protest was entered at Dublin. 

But after we had talked of hunting, racing, regatting, and all 
other sports, I came to a discovery which astonished me, and for 
which these honest kind fellows are mentioned publicly here. The 
portraits, or a sort of resemblance of four of them, may be seen in 
the foregoing drawing of the car. The man with the straw-hat 
and handkerchief tied over it is the captain of an Indiaman; 
three others, with each a pair of moustaches, sported yacht-cos- 
tumes, jackets, club anchor-buttons, and so forth ; and, finally, one 
on the other side of the car (who cannot be seen on account of 
the portmanteaus, otherwise the likeness would be perfect) was 
dressed with a coat and a hat in the ordinary way. One with 
the gold band and moustaches is a gentleman of property; the 
other three are attorneys every man of them : two in large prac- 
tice in Cork and Dublin ; the other, and owner of the yacht, 
under articles to the attorney of Cork. Now did any Englishman 
ever live with three attorneys for a whole day without hearing 
a single syllable of law spoken ^ Did we ever see in our country 
attorneys with moustaches; or, above all, an attorney’s clerk the 
owner of a yacht of thirty tons ? He is a gentleman of property 
5 2 a 


370 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK 

too the heir, that is, to a good estate ; and has had a yacht of 
his own, he says, ever since he was fourteen years old. Is there 
any Englisli boy of fourteen who commands a ship with a crew of 
five men under him ? We all agreed to have a boat for the stag- 
hunt on the lake next day ; and I went to bed wondering at this 
strange country more than ever. An attorney with moustaches ! 
What would they say of him in Chancery Lane ? 


CHAPTER XI 

KILLARNEY-STAG-HUNTING ON THE LAKE 
RS. MACGILLICUDDY’S house is at the corner of the two 



principal streets of Killarney town, and the drawing-room 


windows command each a street. Before one window is a 
dismal, rickety building, with a slated face, that looks like an ex- 
town-hall. There is a row of arches to the ground-floor, the angles 
at the base of which seem to have mouldered or to have been kicked 
away. Over the centre arch is a picture with a flourishing yellow 
inscription above, importing that it is the meeting-place of the Total 
Abstinence Society. Total abstinence is represented by the figures 
of a gentleman in a blue coat and drab tights, with gilt garters, wlio 
is giving his hand to a lady ; between them is an escutcheon, sur- 
mounted with a cross and charged with religious emblems. Cupids 
float above the heads and between the legs of this happy pair, while 
an exceedingly small tea-table with the requisite crockery reposes 
against the lady^s knee ; a still, with death’s-head and bloody-bones, 
filling up the naked corner near the gentleman. A sort of market 
is held here, and the place is swarming with blue cloaks and groups 
of men talking ; here and there is a stall with coarse linens, crockery, 
a cheese ; and crowds of egg- and milk-women are squatted on the 
pavement, with their ragged customers or gossips ; and the yellow- 
haired girl, drawn in the opposite picture, has been sitting, as if 
for her portrait, this hour past. 

Carts, cars, jingles, barouches, horses and vehicles of all descrip- 
tions rattle presently through the streets : for the town is crowded 
with company for the races and other sports, and all the world is 
bent to see the stag-hunt on the lake. Where the ladies of the 
Macgillicuddy family have slept. Heaven knows, for their house 
is full of lodgers. What voices you hear ! “ Bring me some hot 

wa^aA,” says a genteel high-piped English voice. “Hwhere’s me 
hot watherT’ roars a deep-toned Hibernian. See, over the "way, 
three ladies in ringlets and green tabinet taking their “tay” pre- 
paratory to setting out. I wonder whether they heard the senti- 
mental songs of the law-marines last night ? They must have been 
edified if they did. 


372 


THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK 


My companions came, true to their appointment, and we walked 
down to the boats, lying at a couple of miles from the town, near 
the “ Victoria Inn,” a handsome mansion, in pretty grounds, close 
to the lake, and owned by the patriotic Mr. Finn. A nobleman 
offered Finn eight hundred i)ounds for the use of his house during 
the races, and, to Finn’s eternal honour be it said, he refused the 
money, and said he would keep Iiis house for his friends and patrons, 
the public. Let the Cork Steam-Packet Company think of this 
generosity on the jiart of Mr. Finn, and blush for shame : at the 
Cork Agricultural Show they raised their fares, and were disap- 
pointed in their speculation, as they deserved to be, by indignant 
Englishmen refusing to go at all. 

The morning had been bright enough ; but for fear of accidents 
we took our mackintoshes, and at about a mile from the town found 
it necessary to assume those garments and wear them for the greater 
part of the day. Passing by the “ Victoria,” with its beautiful 
walks, park, and lodge, we came to a little creek wdiere the boats 
were moored ; and there was the wonderful lake before us, wdth its 
mountains, and islands, and trees. Unluckily, however, the moun- 
tains happened to be invisible ; the islands looked like grey masses 
in the fog, and all that we could see for some time was the grey 
silhouette of the boat ahead of us, in which a passenger was engaged 
in a Vv^itty conversation witli some boat still farther in the mist. 

Drumming and trumpeting was heard at a little distance, and 
presently we found ourselves in the midst of a fleet of boats upon 
the rocky shores of the beautiful little Innisfallen. 

Here we landed for a while, and the weather clearing up allowed 
us to see this charming spot : rocks, shrubs, and little abrupt rises 
and Mis of ground, covered with the brightest emerald grass ; a 
beautiful little ruin of a Saxon chapel, lying gentle, delicate, and 
plaintive on the shore ; some noble trees round about it, and beyond, 
presently, the tower of Ross Castle : island after island appearing 
in the clearing sunshine, and the huge* hills throwing their misty 
veils off, and wearing their noble robes of purple. The boats’ crews 
were grouped about the place, and one large barge especially had 
landed some sixty people, being the Temperance band, with its 
drums, trumpets, and wives. They were marshalled by a grave 
old gentleman with a white waistcoat and queue, a silver medal 
decorating one side of his coat, and a brass heart reposing on the 
otlier flap. The horns performed some Irish airs prettily ; and at 
length, at the instigation of a fellow who went swaggering about 
with a pair of whirling drumsticks, all formed together and played 
“ Garry owen ” — the active drum of course most dreadfully out of 
time. 


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THE STAG-HUNT 


373 


Having strolled about the island for a quarter of an hour, it 
became time to take to the boats again, and we were rowed over 
to the wood opposite Sullivan’s cascade, where tlie hounds had been 
laid in in the morning, and the stag was expected to take water. 
Fifty or sixty men are employed on the mountain to drive the stag 
lakewards, should he be inclined to break away : and the sport 
generally ends by the stag — a wild one — making for the water with 
the pack swimming afterwards ; and here he is taken and disposed 
of : how I know not. It is rather a parade than a stag-hunt ; but, 
with all the boats around and the noble view, must be a fine tiling 
to see. 

Presently, steering his barge, the Erin^ with twelve oars and a 
green flag sweeping the water, came by the president of the sports, 
Mr. John O’Connell, a gentleman who appears to be liked by rich 
and poor here, and by the latter especially is adored. “ Sure we’d 
dhrown ourselves for him,” one man told me; and proceeded to 
speak eagerly in his praise, and to tell numberless acts of his 
generosity and justice. The justice is rather rude in this wild 
country sometimes, and occasionally the judges not only deliver 
the sentence but execute it ; nor does any one think of appealing 
to any more regular jurisdiction. The likeness of Mr. O’Comiell 
to his brother is very striking ; one miglit liave declared it was the 
Liberator sitting at the stern of the boat. 

Some scores more boats were there, darting up and down in the 
pretty busy waters. Here came a Cambridge boat ; and where, 
indeed, will not the gentlemen of that renowned University be 
found? Yonder were the dandy dragoons, stiff, silent, slim, fault- 
lessly appointed, solemnly puffing cigars. Every now and then a 
hound would be heard in the wood, whereon numbers of voices, 
right and left, would begin to yell in chorus — “ Hurroo ! Hoop ! 
Yow — yow — yow ! ” in accents the most shrill or the most melan- 
cholious. Meanwdiile the sun had had enough of the sport, the 
mountains put on their veils again, the islands retreated into the 
mist, the word went through the fleet to spread all umbrellas, and 
ladies took shares of mackintoshes and disappeared under the flaps 
of silk cloaks. 

The wood comes down to the very edge of the water, and many 
of the crews thought fit to land and seek this green shelter. There 
you might see how the dandium sumind genus hcesit ulmo, 
clambering up thither to hide from the rain, and many “ membra ” 
in dabbled russia-ducks cowering viridi sub arbuto ad aquae lene 
caput. To behold these moist dandies the natives of the country 
came eagerly. Strange savage faces might be seen peering from out 
of the trees : long-haired bare-legged girls came dowm the hill, some 


374 


THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK 


with green apples and very sickly -looking plums; some with 
whisky and goat’s-milk : a ragged boy had a pair of stag’s horns 
to sell ; the place swarmed with people. We went up the hill to 
see the noble cascade, and when you say that it comes rushing 
down over rock and through tangled woods, alas ! one has said all 
the dictionary can help you to, and not enough to distinguish this 
particular cataract from any other. This seen and admired, we 
came back to the harbour where the boats lay, and from which spot 
tlie reader might have seen a view of the lake— that is, you ivould 
see the lake, if the mist would only clear away. 

But this for hours it did not seem inclined to do. We rowed 
up and down industriously for a period of time which seemed to me 
atrociously long. The bugles of the Erin had long since sounded 
“ Home, sweet home ! ” and the greater part of the fleet had dis- 
persed. As for the stag-hunt, all I saw of it was four dogs that 
appeared on the shore at different intervals, and a huntsman in a 
scarlet coat, who similarly came and went : once or twice we were 
gratified by hearing the hounds : but at last it was agreed that 
there was no chance for the day, and we rowed off to Kenmare 
Cottage — where, on the lovely lawn, or in a cottage adjoining, the 
gentry picnic, and where, with a handkerchief-ful of potatoes, we 
made as pleasant a meal as ever I recollect. Here a good number 
of the boats were assembled ; here you might see cloths spread and 
dinner going on; here were those wonderful officers, looking as if 
they had just stepped from bandboxes, with — by heavens ! — not a 
shirt-collar disarranged nor a boot dimmed by the wet. An old 
piper was making a very feeble music, with a handkerchief spread 
over his face; and, farther on, a little smiling German boy was 
playing an accordion and singing a ballad of Hauffs. I had a 
silver medal in my pocket, with Victoria on one side and Britannia 
on the other, and gave it him, for the sake of old times and his 
round friendly face. Oh, little German boy, many a night as you 
trudge lonely through this wild land, must you yearn after Briider- 
lein and Schwesterlein at home — yonder in stately Frankfurt city 
that lies by silver Main. I thought of vineyards and sunshine, and 
the greasy clock in the theatre, and the railroad all the way to 
Wiesbaden, and the handsome Jew country-houses by the Bocken- 
heimer-Thor . . . “ Come along,” says the boatman. “ All the 
gintlemin are waiting for your honour.” And I found them finish- 
ing the potatoes, and we all had a draught of water from the lake, 
and so pulled to the Middle or Turk Lake through the picturesque 
green rapid that floats under Brickeen Bridge. 

What is to be said about Turk Lake 1 When there, we agreed 
that it was more beautiful than the large lake, of which it is not 


THE LAKES OF KILLARNEY 


375 


one-fourth the size ; then, wlien we came back, we said, “ No, the 
large lake is the most beautiful.” And so, at every point we 
stopped at, we determined that that particular spot was the 
prettiest in the whole lake. The fact is — and I don’t care to own 
it — they are too handsome. As for a man coming from his desk 
in London or Dublin and seeing “ the whole lakes in a day,” he is 
an ass for his pains ; a child doing sums in addition might as well 
read the whole multiplication-table, and fancy he had it by heart. 
We should look at these wonderful things leisurely and thouglit- 
fully; and even then, blessed is he who understands them. I 
wonder what impression the sight made upon the three tipsy English- 
men at Glengariff? What idea of natural beauty belongs to an 
old fellow who says he is “ a gentleman, and pays his way ” ? What 
to a jolly fox-hunter, who had rather see a good “ screeching ” nm 
with the hounds than the best landscape ever painted ? And yet 
they all come hither, and go through the business regularly, and 
would not miss seeing every one of the lakes and going up every 
one of the hills. By which circumlocution the writer wishes 
ingenuously to announce that he will not see any more lakes, 
ascend any mountains or towers, visit any gaps of Dunloe, or any 
prospects whatever, except such as nature siiall fling in his way 
in the course of a quiet reasonable walk. 

In the Middle Lake we were carried to an island where a 
ceremony of goat’s-milk and whisky is performed by some travellers, 
and where you are carefully conducted to a spot that “ Sir Walter 
Scott admired more than all.” Whether he did or not, we can 
only say on the authority of the boatman ; but the place itself 
was a quiet nook, where three waters meet, and indeed of no great 
picturesqueness when compared with the beauties around. But it is 
of a gentle homely beauty — not like the lake, which is as a princess 
dressed out in diamonds and velvet for a drawing-room, and knowing 
herself to l)e faultless too. As for Innisfallen, it was just as if she 
gave one smiling peep into the nursery before she went away, so 
quiet, innocent, and tender is that lovely spot ; but, depend on it, if 
there is a lake fairy or princess, as Crofton Croker and other historians 
assert, she is of her nature a vain creature, proud of her person, and 
fond of the finest dresses to adorn it. May I confess that I would 
rather, for a continuance, have a house facing a paddock, with a cow 
in it, than be always looking at this immense overpowering splen- 
dour. You would not, my dear brother cockney from Tooley Street? 
No, those brilliant eyes of thine w’ere never meant to gaze at any- 
thing less bright than the sun. Your mighty spirit finds nothing 
too vast for its comprehension, spurns what is humble as unworthy, 
and only, like Foote’s bear, dances to “ the genteelest of tunes.” 


376 


THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK 


The long and short of the matter is, that on getting off the 
lake, after seven hours’ rowing, I felt as much relieved as if I 
had been dining for the same length of time with her Majesty 
the Queen, and went jumping home as gaily as possible ; but those 
marine-lawyers insisted so piteously upon seeing Ross Castle, close 
to which we were at length landed, that I was obliged (in spite 
of repeated oaths to the contrary) to ascend that tower, and take 
a bird’s-eye view of the scene. Thank Heaven, I have neither tail 
nor wings, and have not the slightest wish to be a bird : that 
continual immensity of prospect wdiich stretches beneath those 
little wings of theirs must deaden their intellects, depend on it. 
Tomkins and I are not made for the immense : w'e can enjoy a 
little at a time, and enjoy that little very much ; or if like birds, 
we are like the ostrich — not that we have fine feathers to our backs, 
but because we cannot fly. Press us too much, and we become 
flurried, and run off and bury our heads in the quiet bosom of dear 
mother earth, and so get rid of the din, and the dazzle, and the 
shouting. 

Because we dined upon potatoes, that was no reason we should 
sup on buttermilk. Well, well ! salmon is good, and whisky is 
good too. 


CHAPTER XII 

KILLARNEY— THE RACES— MUCKROSS 

T he races were as gay as races could be, in spite of one or two 
untoward accidents that arrived at the close of tlie day's 
sport. Where all the people came from that thronged out 
of the town was a wonder ; where all the vehicles, the cars, barouches 
and shandrydans, the carts, the horse- and donkey-men could have 
found stable and shelter, who can tell 1 Of all these equipages and 
donkeypages I had a fine view^ from Mrs. Macgillicuddy’s window, 
and it was pleasant to sec the happy faces shining under the blue 
cloaks as the carts rattled by. 

A very handsome young lady — I presume MissMacG. — who gives 
a hand to the drawing-room and comes smiling in with the teapot 
— Miss MacGr., I say, appeared to-day in a silk bonnet and stiff silk 
dress, with a brooch and a black mantle, as smart as any lady in the 
land, and looking as if she was accustomed to her dress too, which the 
housemaid on the banks of Thames does not. Indeed, I have not met 
a more ladylike young person in Ireland than Miss MacG. ; and when 
I saw her in a handsome car on the course, I was quite proud of a bow. 

Tramping thither, too, as hard as they could walk, and as happy 
and smiling as possible, were Mary the coachman’s wife of the day 
before, and Johanna with tlie child, and presently the other young 
lady : the man with the stick, you may be sure : he would toil a 
year for that day’s pleasure. They are all mad for it : people walk 
for miles and miles round to the race ; they come without a penny 
in their pockets often, trusting to chance and charity, and that some 
worthy gentleman may fling them a sixpence. A gentleman told 
me that he saw on the course ])ersons from his part of the country, 
who must liave walked eighty miles for the sport. 

For a mile and a half to tlie racecourse there could be no 
pleasanter occupation than looking at the happy multitudes who 
were thronging thither ; and I am bound to say that on rich or poor 
shoulders I never saw so many handsome faces in my life. In the 
carriages, among the ladies of Kerry, every second woman was 
handsome ; and tliere is something peculiarly tender and pleasing in 
the looks of the young female peasantry that is perhaps even better 


378 


THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK 


than beauty. Beggars had taken their stations along the road in 
no great numbers, for I suspect they were most of them on the 
ground, and those who remained were consequently of the oldest and 
ugliest. It is a shame that such horrible figures are allowed to 
appear in public as some of the loathsome ones which belong to these 
unhappy people. On went the crowd, however, laughing and as gay 
as possible ; all sorts of fun passing from car to foot passengers as 
the pretty girls came clattering by, and the “ boys ” had a word for 
each. One lady with long flowing auburn hair, who was turning 
away her head from some “ boys ” very demurely, I actually saw, at 
a pause of the cart, kissed by one of them. Slie gave the fellow a 
huge box on the ear, and he roared out “ 0 murther ! ” and she 
frowned for some time as hard as she could, whilst the ladies in the 
blue cloaks at the back of the car uttered a shrill rebuke in Irish. 
But in a minute the whole party was grinning, and the young fellow 
who had administered the salute may, for what I know, have taken 
another without the slap on the face by way of exchange. 

And here, lest the fair public may have a bad opinion of the 
personage who talks of kissing with such awful levity, let it be said 
that with all this laughing, romping, kissing, and the like, there are 
no more innocent girls in the world than the Irish girls ; and that 
the women of our squeamish country are far more liable to err. One 
has but to walk through an English and Irish town, and see how 
much superior is the morality of the latter. That great terror- 
striker, the Confessional, is before the Irish girl, and sooner or 
later her sins must be told there. 

By this time we are got upon the course, which is really one of 
the most beautiful spots that ever was seen : the lake and mountains 
lying along two sides of it, and of course visible from all. They 
were busy putting up the hurdles when we arrived : stiff bars and 
poles, four feet from the ground, with furze-bushes over them. The 
grand stand was already full ; along the hedges sat thousands of the 
people, sitting at their ease doing nothing, and happy as kings. A 
daguerreotype would have been of great service to have taken their 
portraits, and I never saw a vast multitude of heads and attitudes 
so picturesque and lively. The sun lighted up the whole course 
and the lakes with amazing brightness, though behind the former 
lay a huge rack of the darkest clouds, against which the cornfields 
and meadows shone in the brightest green and gold, and a row of 
white tents was quite dazzling. 

There was a brightness and intelligence about this immense 
Irish crowd, which I don’t remember to have seen in an English 
one. The women in their blue cloaks, with red smiling faces peering 
from one end, and bare feet from the other, had seated themselves 


THE RACES 


379 

in all sort of pretty attitudes of cheerful contemplation ; and the 
men, who are accustomed to lie about, were doing so now with all 
their might — sprawling on tlie banks, with as much ease and variety 
as club-room loungers on their soft cushions — or squatted leisurely 
among the green potatoes. The sight of so much happy laziness 
did one good to look on. Nor did the honest fellows seem to weary 
of this amusement. Hours passed on, and the gentlefolks (judging 
from our party) began to grow somewhat weary ; but the finest 
peasantry in Europe never budged from their posts, and continued 
to indulge in greetings, indolence, and conversation. 

When we came to the row of white tents, as usual it did not 

look so brilliant or imposing jis it appeared from a little distance, 

though the scene around them was animated enough. The tents 
were long humble booths stretched on hoops, each with its humble 
streamer or ensign without, and containing, of course, articles of re- 
freshment within. But Father Mathew has been busy among the 

publicans, and the consequence is that the poor fellows are now 

condemned for the most part to sell “ tay ” in place of whisky ; for 
the concoction of which beverage huge cauldrons were smoking, in 
front of each hut-door, in round graves dug for the purpose and piled 
up with black smoking sod. 

Behind this camp were the carts of the poor people, which were 
not allowed to penetrate into the quarter where the quality cars 
stood. And a little way from the huts, again, you miglit see (for 
you could scarcely hear) certain pipers executing their melodies and 
inviting people to dance. 

Anything more lugubrious than the drone of the pipe, or the jig 
danced to it, or the countenances of the dancers and musicians, I 
never saw. Round each set of dancers the people formed a ring, in 
which the figurantes and coryphees went through their operations. 
The toes went in and the toes went out ; then there came certain 
mystic figures of hands across, and so forth. I never saw less grace 
or seemingly less enjoyment — no, not even in a quadrille. The 
people, however, took a great interest, and it was “Well done, 
Tim ! ” “ Step out, Miss Brady ! ” and so fortli during the dance. 

Thimblerig too obtained somewhat, though in a humble way. A 
ragged scoundrel — the image of Hogarth’s Bad Apprentice — went 
bustling and shouting through the crowd with his dirty tray and 
thimble, and as soon as he had taken his post, stated that this was 
the “royal game of thimble,” and called upon “gintlemin” to come 
forward. And then a ragged fellow would be seen to approach, with 
as innocent an air as he could assume, and the bystanders might 
remark that tlie second ragged fellow almost always won. Nay, he 
was so benevolent, in many instances, as to point out to various people 


380 


THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK 


who had a mind to bet, under which thimble the pea actually was. 
Meanwhile, the first fellow was sure to be looking away and talking 
to some one in the crowd ; but somehow it generally happened — and 
how' of course I can’t tell — that any man who listened to the advice 
of rascal No. 2 lost his money. I believe it is so even in England. 

Then you would see gentlemen with halfpenny roulette-tables; and, 
again, here were a pair (indeed they are very good portraits) who 
came forward disinterestedly with a table and a pack of cards, and 
began playing against each other for ten shillings a game, betting 
crowns as freely as possible. 

Gambling, however, must have been fatal to both of these gentle- 



men, else might not one have supposed that, if they were in the 
habit of winning much, they would have treated themselves to better 
clothes ? This, however, is the way with all gamblers, as the reader 
has no doubt remarked ; for, look at a game of loo or vingt-et-un 
played in a friendly way, and where you, and three or four others, 
have certainly lost three or four pounds, — well, ask at the end of 
the game who has won, and you invariably find that nobody has. 
Hopkins has only covered himself ; Snooks has neither lost nor won ; 
Smitli has won four shillings ; and so on. Who gets the money 1 
The devil gets it, I dare say ; and so, no doubt, he has laid hold of 
the money of yonder gentleman in the handsome great-coat. 

But, to the shame of the stewards be it spoken, they are ex- 


THE RACES 


381 


tremely averse to this kind of sport ; and presently comes np one, 
a stout old gentleman on a bay horse, wielding a huge hunting- 
whip, at the sight of which all fly, amateurs, idlers, professional 
men, and all. He is a rude customer to deal with, tliat gentleman 
with the whip ; just now he was clearing the course, and cleared it 
with such a vengeance that a whole troop on a hedge retreated 
backwards into a ditch opposite, where was rare kicking, and sprawl- 
ing, and disarrangement of petticoats, and cries of “ 0 murther ! ” 
“ Mother of God ! ” “ I’m kilt ! ” and so on. But as soon as the 
horsewhip was gone, the people clambered out of their ditch again, 
and were as thick as ever on the bank. 

The last instance of the exercise of the wdiip sliall be this. A 
groom rode insolently after a gentleman, calling liim names, and in- 
viting him to flght. This the great flagellator hearing, rode up to the 
groom, lifted him gracefully off his horse into the air, and on to the 
ground, and when there mlministered to him a severe and merited 
fustigation ; after wliich he told the course-keepers to drive the fellow 
off the course, and enjoined the latter not to appear again at his peril. 

As for the races themselves, I won’t pretend to say that they 
were better or worse than other such amusements ; or to quarrel 
with gentlemen who choose to risk their lives in manly exercise. 
In the first race tliere was a fall : one of the gentlemen was carried 
off the ground, and it was said he was dead. In the second race, 
a horse and man went over and over each other, and the fine young 
man (we had seen him five minutes before, full of life and triumph, 
clearing the hurdles on his grey horse, at the head of the race) : — 
in the second heat of the second race the poor fellow missecl his 
leap, was carried away stunned and dying, and the hay horse won. 

I was standing, during the first heat of this race (this is the 
second man the grey has killed — they ought to call him the Pale 
Horse), by half-a-dozen young girls from the gentleman’s village, and 
hundreds more of them were there, anxious for the honour of their 
village, the young squire, and the grey horse. Oh, how they 
hurrah’d as he rode ahead ! I saw these girls — they might be 
fourteen years old — after the catastrophe. “ Well,” says I, “ this 
is a sad end to the race.” “ And is it the jiink jacket or the line 
has won this timeV says one of the girls. It was poor Mr. 

C ’s only epitaph: and wasn’t it a sporting answer? That 

girl ought to be a hurdle-racer’s wife; and I would like, for my 
part, to bestow her upon the groom who won the race. 

I don’t care to confess that the accident to the poor young 
gentleman so thoroughly disgusted my feelings as a man and a 
cockney, that I turned off the racecourse short, and hired a horse 
for sixpence to carry me back to Miss Macgillicuddy. In the 


382 


THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK 


evening, at the inn (let no man who values comfort go to an Irish 
inn in race-time), a blind old piper, with silvery hair, and of a 
most respectable bard-like appearance, played a great deal too much 
for us after dinner. He played very well, and with very much 
feeling, ornamenting tlie airs with flourishes and variations that 
were very pretty indeed, and his pipe was by far the most 
melodious I have heard ; but honest truth compels me to say that 
the bad pipes are execrable, and the good inferior to a clarionet. 

Next day, instead of going back to the racecourse, a car drove 
me out to Muckross, where, in Mr. Herbert’s beautiful grounds, lies 
the prettiest little hijou of a ruined abbey ever seen — a little chapel 
with a little chancel, a little cloister, a little dormitory, and in the 
midst of the cloister a wonderful huge yew-tree which darkens the 
whole place. The abbey is famous in book and legend ; nor could 
two young lovers, or artists in search of the picturesque, or picnic- 
parties with the cold chicken and champagne in the distance, find a 
more charming place to wliile away a summer’s day than in the park 
of Mr. Herbert. But depend on it, for show-places and the due 
enjoyment of scenery, that distance of cold chicken and champagne 
is the most pleasing ijerspective one can have. I would have 
sacrificed a mountain or two for the above, and would have pitched 
Mangerton into the lake for the sake of a friend with wdiom to enjoy 
the rest of the landscape. 

The walk through Mr. Herbert’s demesne carries you, through 
all sorts of beautiful avenues, by a fine house which he is building 
in the Elizabethan style, and from which, as from the wliole road, 
you command the most wonderful rich views of the lake. The 
shore breaks into little bays, which tlie water washes; here and 
there are picturesque grey rocks to meet it, the bright gi'ass as often, 
or the shrubs of every kind which bathe their roots in the lake. It 
was August, and the men before Turk Cottage were cutting a second 
crop of clover, as fine, seemingly, as a first crop elsewhere : a short 
walk from it brought us to a neat lodge, whence issued a keeper 
with a key, quite willing, for the consideration of sixpence, to 
conduct us to Turk waterfall. 

Evergreens and other trees, in their brightest livery ; blue sky ; 
roaring water, here black, and yonder foaming of a dazzling white ; 
rocks shining in the dark places, or frowning black against the light, 
all the leaves and branches keeping up a perpetual waving and 
dancing round about tlie cascade : what is the use of putting down 
all this 1 A man might describe the cataract of the Serpentine in 
exactly the same terms, and the reader be no wiser. Suffice it to 
say, that the Turk cascade is even handsomer than the before- 
mentioned waterfall of O’Sullivan, and that a man may pass half- 


MUCKROSS VILLAGE 


383 


an-hour there, and look, and listen, and muse, and not even feel the 
want of a companion, or so much as think of the iced champagne. 
There is just enough of savageness in the Turk cascade to make the 
view It is not, at this season at least, by any means 

fierce, only wild ; nor was the scene peopled by any of the rude 
red-shanked figures that clustered about the trees of O’Sullivan’s 
waterfall — savages won’t pay sixpence for the prettiest waterfall 
ever seen — so that this only was for the best of company. 

The road hence to Killarney carries one through Muckross 
village, a pretty cluster of houses, where the sketch er will find 
abundant materials for exercising his art and puzzling his hand. 
There are not only noble trees, but a green common and an old 
water-gate to a river, lined on either side by beds of rushes and 
discharging itself beneath an old mill-wdieel. But the old mill- 
wheel Avas perfectly idle, like most men and mill-wheels in this 
country : by it is a ruinous house, and a fine garden of stinging- 
nettles ; opposite it, on the common, is another ruinous house, with 
another garden containing the same plant ; and far away are sharp 
ridges of purple hills, which make as pretty a landscape as the eye 
can see. I don’t know hoAv it is, but througliout the country the 
men and the landscapes seem to be the same, and one and the other 
seem ragged, ruined, and cheerful. 

Having been emj)loyed all day (making some abominable at- 
tempts at landscape-drawing, which shall not be exhibited liere), it 
became requisite, as the evening approached, to recruit an exhausted 
cockney stomach — Avhich, after a very moderate portion of exercise, 
begins to sigh for beefsteaks in the most peremptory manner. Hard 
by is a fine hotel AAutli a fine sign stretching along the road for the 
space of a dozen windows at least, and looking inviting enough. 
All the doors were open, and I walked into a great number of rooms, 
but the only person I saw Avas a Avoman Avith trinkets of arbutus, 
who offered me, by Avay of refreshment, a Avalking-stick or a card- 
rack. I suppose everybody Avas at the races ; and an evilly-disposed 
person might have laid main-hasse upon the great-coats Avhich were 
there, and the silver spoons, if by any miracle such things Avere 
kept — but Britannia-metal is the favourite composition in Ireland ; 
or else iron by itself ; or else iron that has been silvered over, but 
that takes good care to peep out at all the corners of the forks : and 
blessed is the traveller Avho has not other obserA^ations to make 
regarding his fork, besides the mere abrasion of the silver. 

This Avas the last day’s race, and on tiie next morning (Sunday), 
all the thousands who had croAvded to the race seemed trooping to 
the chapels, and the, streets Avere blue with cloaks. W alking in to 
prayers, and Avithout his board, came my young friend of the 


384 . 


THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK 


thimblerig, and presently after sauntered in the fellow with the 
long coat, who had played at cards for sovereigns. I should like to 
hear the confession of himself and friend the next time they com- 
municate with his reverence. 

The extent of tliis town is very curious, and I should imagine 
its population to be much greater than five thousand, which was 
the number, according to Miss Macgillicuddy. Along the three 
main streets are numerous arches, down every one of wdiich runs 
an alley, intersected by other alleys, and swarming witli people. A 
stream or gutter runs commonly down these alleys, in which the 
pigs and children are seen paddling about. The men and women 
loll at their doors or windows, to enjoy the detestable prospect. I 
saw two pigs under a fresh-made deal staircase in one of the main 
streets near the Bridewell : two very well-dressed girls, with their 
hair in ringlets, were looking out of the parlour-window : almost all 
the glass in the upper rooms was of course smashed, the windows 
patched here and there (if the people were careful), the woodwork 
of the door loose, the whitewash peeling oft’, — and the house 
evidently not two years old. 

By the Bridewell is a busy potato-market, picturesque to the 
sketcher, if not very respectable to the merchant : here were the 
country carts and the country cloaks, and the shrill beggarly 
bargains going on — a world of shrieking, and gesticulating, and talk, 
about a pennyworth of potatoes. 

All round the town miserable streets of cabins are stretched. 
You see people lolling at each door, women staring and combing 
their hair, men with their little pipes, children whose rags hang on 
by a miracle, idling in a gutter. Are we to set all this down to 
absenteeism, and pity poor injured Ireland 1 Is the landlord’s 
absence the reason why the house is filthy, and Biddy lolls in the 
porch all day ? Upon my wmrd, I have lieard people talk as if, 
when Pat’s thatch was blown oft", the landlovd ought to go fetch 
the straw and the ladder, and mend it lumself. People need not 
be dirty if they are ever so idle ; if they are ever so poor, pigs and 
men need not live together. Half-an-hour’s work, and digging a 
trench, miglit remove that filthy dunghill from that filthy window. 
The smoke might as w^ell come out of the chimney as out of the 
door. Why should not Tim do that, instead of walking a hundred- 
and-sixty miles to a racel The priests might do mucli more to 
effect these reforms than even the landlords themselves : and I hope 
now that the excellent Father Mathew has succeeded in arraying 
his clergy to work with him in the abolition of drunkenness, they 
will attack the monster Dirt, with the same good-will, and surely 
with the same success. 


CHAPTER XIII 

TRALEE— LISTOW EL- T ALBERT 

[ MADE the journey to Tralee next day, upon one of the famous 
Bianconi cars — very comfortable conveyances too, if the booking 
officers would only receive as many persons as the car would 
hold, and not have too many on the seats. For half-an-hour before 
the car left Killarney, I observed people had taken their seats : and, 
let all travellers be cautious to do likewise, lest, although they have 
booked thei- places, they be requested to mount on the roof, and ac- 
commodate themselves on a bandbox, or a pleasant deal trunk with 
a knotted rope, to prevent it from being slippery, while tlie corner 
of another box jolts against your ribs for tl:o journey. I had put 
my coat on a place, and was stepping to it, when a lovely lady with 
great activity jumped up and pushed the coat on the roof, and not 
only occupied my seat, but insisted that her husband should have 
the next one to her. So there was nothing for it but to make a 
luige shouting with the book-keeper and call instantly for the taking 
down of my luggage, and vow my great gods that I would take a 
postchaise and make the office pay : on which, I am ashamed to 
say, some other person was made to give up a decently comfortable 
seat on the roof, which I occupied, the former occupant hanging on 
— Heaven knows where or how. 

A comi)any of young squires were on the coach, and they talked 
of horse-racing and hunting punctually for three hours, during wliicli 
time I do believe they did not utter one single word upon any other 
subject. What a wonderful faculty it is ! The writers of Natural 
Histories, in describing the noble horse, should say he is made not 
only to run, to carry burdens, &c., but to be talked about. What 
would hundreds of thousands of dashing young fellows do with their 
tongues, if they had not this blessed subject to discourse on 1 

As far as the country went, there was here, to be sure, not 
much to be said. You pass through a sad-looking, bare, undulating 
country, with few trees, and poor stone-hedges, and poorer crops; 
nor have I yet taken in Ireland ^o dull a ride. About half-way 
between Tralee and Killarney is a wretched town, where horses are 
changed, and where I saw more hideous beggary than anywhere 


386 


THE lEISH SKETCH BOOK 


else, I think. And I was glad to get over this gloomy tract of 
country, and enter the capital of Kerry. 

It has a handsome description in the guide-books; but, if I 
mistake not, the Englisli traveller will find a stay of a couple of 
hours in the town quite sufficient to gratify his curiosity with 
respect to the place. There seems to be a great deal of poor 
business going on ; the town thronged Avith people as usual ; the 
shops large and not too splendid. There are tAvo or three roAvs 
of respectable houses, and a mall, and the toAvnspeople have the 
further privilege of Avalkiug in the neighbouring grounds of a 
handsome park, Avhich the proprietor has liberally given to their 
use. Tralee has a newspaper, and boasts of a couple of clubs ; the 
one I saw was a big Avhite house, no AvindoAA's broken, and looking 
comfortable. But the most curious sight of the toAvn Avas the 
chapel, AA’ith the festival held there. It Avas the feast of the 
Assumption of the Virgin (let those who are acquainted AAuth the 
calendar and the facts it commemorates say Avhat the feast Avas, and 
Avhen it falls), and all the country seemed to be present on the 
occasion : the chapel and the large court leading to it were thronged 
Avith worshippers, such as one never sees in our country, Avhere 
devotion is by no means so croAvded as here. Here, in the court- 
yard, there Avere thousands of them on their knees, rosary in hand, 
for the most part praying, and mumbling, and casting a Avistful 
look round as the strangers passed. In a corner Avas an old man 
groaning in the agonies of death or colic, and a AA^oman got off her 
knees to ask us for charity for the unhappy old felloAv. In the 
chapel the croAvd Avas enormous : the priest and his people Avere 
kneeling, and boAving, and humming and chanting, and censer- 
rattling ; the ghostly crew being attended by a fellow that I 
don’t remember to liave seen in Continental churches, a sort 
of Catholic clerk, a black shadoAv to the parson, boAving his head 
when his reverence bowed, kneeling when he knelt, only three steps 
lower. 

But we AAdio AAmnder at copes and candlesticks, see nothing strange 
in surplices and beadles. A Turk, doubtless, would sneer equally 
at each, and have you to understand that the only reasonable cere- 
monial Avas that Avhich took place at his mosque. 

Whether right or AATong in point of ceremony, it was evident 
the heart of devotion was there : the immense dense croAvd moaned 
and SAvayed, and yoii heard a hum of all sorts of wild ejaculations, 
each man praying seemingly for himself, while the service Avent on 
at the altar. The altar candles flickered red in the dark steaming 
place, and every now and then from the choir you heard a SAveet 
female voice chanting Mozart’s music, AA'hich swept over the heads 


TRALEE TO TARBERT 387 

of the people a great deal more pure and delicious than the T^est 
incense that ever smoked out of the pot. 

On the chapel-floor, just at the entry, lay several people moan- 
ing, and tossing, and telling their beads. Behind the old woman 
was a font of holy Avater, up to Avhich little children Avere clamber- 
ing ; and in the chapel-yard were several old women, Avith tin cans 
full of the same sacred fluid, Avith Avdiicli the people, as they entered, 
aspersed themselves Avith all their might, flicking a great quantity 
into their faces, and making a curtsey and a prayer at the same 
time. “ A pretty prayer, truly ! ” says the parson’s wife. “ What 
sad sad benighted superstition ! ” says the Independent minister’s 
lady. Ah ! ladies, great as your intelligence is, yet think, when 
compared Avith the Supreme One, Avhat a little difterence there is 
after all betAveen your husbands’ very best extempore oration and 
the poor Popish creatures’ ! One is just as far ofl* Infinite Wisdom 
as the other : and so let us read the story of the Avoman and her 
pot of ointment, that most noble and charming of histories ; which 
equalises the great and the small, the Avise and the poor in 
spirit, and shoAv^s that their merit before HeaA^en lies in doing 
their' best. 

When I came out of the chapel, the old fellow on the point of 
death AA^as still howling and groaning in so vehement a manner, that 
I heartily trust he was an impostor, and that on receiving a sixpence 
he went home tolerably comfortable, having secured a maintenance 
for that day. But it aauII be long before I can forget the strange Avild 
scene, so entirely different AA^as it from the decent and comfortable 
observances of our oAvn Church. 

Three cars set off together from Tralee to Tarbert : three cars 
full to overfloAving. Tlie vehicle before us contained nineteen persons, . 
half-a-dozen being placed in the receptacle called the Avell, and one 
clinging on as if by a miracle at the bar behind. What can people 
Avant at Tarbert 1 I wondered ; or anywhere else, indeed, that they 
rush about from one tovm to another in this inconceiA'able AA\ay^ 
All the cars in all the towns seem to be thronged : people are per- 
petually hurrying from one dismal tumble-doAvn toAvn to another ; 
and yet no business is done anywhere that I can see. The chief 
part of the contents of our three cars Avas discharged at ListoAvel, to 
Avhich, for the greater part of the journey, the road was neither more 
cheerful nor picturesque than that from Killarney to Tralee. As, 
hoAvever, you reach Listowel, the country becomes better cultivated, 
the gentlemen’s seats are more frequent, and the town itself, as seen 
from a little distance, lies very prettily on a river, Avhich is crossed 
by a handsome bridge, Avhich leads to a neat-looking square, which 
contains a smartish church, Avhich is flanked b^' a big Roman 


388 


THE lEISH SKETCH BOOK 


Catholic chapel, &c. An old castle, grey and ivy-covered, stands 
hard by. It was one of the strongholds of the lords of Kerry, 
whose burying-place (according to the information of the coachman) 
is seen at about a league from the town. 

But pretty as Listowel is from a distance, it has, on a more 
intimate acquaintance, by no means the prosperous appearance which 
a first glance gives it. The place seemed like a scene at a country 
theatre, once smartly painted by the artist ; but the paint has 
cracked in many places, the lines are worn away, and the whole 
piece only looks more shabby for the flaunting strokes of the brush 
which remain. And here, of course, came the usual crowd of idlers 
round the car : the epileptic idiot holding piteously out his empty 
tin snuff-box ; the brutal idiot, in an old soldier’s coat, proffering his 
money-box, and grinning, and clattering the single halfpenny it con- 
tained ; the old man with no eyelids, calling upon you in the name 
of the Lord ; the woman with a child at her hideous wrinkled breast ; 
the children without number. As for trade, there seemed to be 
none : a great Jeremy-Diddler kind of hotel stood hard by, swagger- 
ing and out-at-elbows, and six pretty girls were smiling out of a 
beggarly straw-bonnet shop, dressed as smartly as any gentle- 
man’s daughters of good estate. It was good, among the crowd 
of bustling shrieking fellows, who were “jawing” vastly and doing 
nothing, to see how an English bagman, with scarce any words, 
laid hold of an ostler, carried him off vi et armis in the midst of 
a speech, in which the latter was going to explain his immense 
actmty and desire to serve, pushed him into a stable, from which 
he issued in a twinkling leading the ostler and a horse, and had 
his bag on the car and his horse off in about two minutes of time, 
while the natives were still shouting round about other passengers’ 
portmanteaus. 

Some time afterwards, away we rattled on our own journey to 
Tarbert, having a postillion on the leader, and receiving, I must say, 
some graceful bows from the young bonnet-makeresses. But of all 
the roads over which human bones were ever jolted, the first part of 
this from Listowel to Tarbert deserves the palm. It shook us all 
into headaches ; it shook some nails out of the side of a box I had ; 
it shook all the cords loose in a twinkling, and sent the baggage 
bumping about the passengers’ shouldei's. Tlie coachman at the call 
of another English bagman, who was a fellow-traveller, — the postillion 
at the call of the coachman, descended to re-cord the baggage. The 
English bagman had the whole mass of trunks and bags stoutly 
corded and firmly fixed in a few seconds ; the coachman helped him 
as far as his means allowed ; the postillion stood by with his hands 
in his pockets, smoking his pipe, and never offering to stir a finger. 


LISTOWEL TO TARBERT 


389 

I said to him that I was delighted to see in a youth Ox sixteen that 
extreme activity and willingness to oblige, and that I would give 
him a handsome remuneration for his services at the end of the 
journey : the young rascal grinned with all his might, understanding 
tlie satiric nature of the address perfectly well ; but he did not take 
his hands out of his pockets for all that, until it was time to get on 
his horse again, and then, having carried us over the most difficult 
part of the journey, removed his horse and pipe, and rode away 
with a parting gian. 

The cabins along the road were not much better than those to 
be seen south of Tralee, but the people were far better clothed, and 
indulged in several places in the luxury of pigsties. Near the 
prettily situated village of Ballylongford, we came in sight of the 
Shannon mouth ; and a huge red round moon, that shone behind an 
old convent on the banks of the bright river, with dull green meadows 
between it and us, and wide purple flats beyond, would be a good 
subject for the pencil of any artist whose wrist had not been put out 
of joint by the previous ten miles’ journey. 

The town of Tarbert, in the guide-books and topographical 
dictionaries, flourishes considerably. You read of its port, its corn 
and provision stores, &c., and of certain good hotels ; for whicli as 
travellers we were looking with a laudable anxiety. The town, in 
fact, contains about a dozen of houses, some hundreds of cabins, and 
two hotels ; to one of whic.h we were driven, and a kind landlady, 
conducting her half-dozen guests into a snug parlour, was for our 
ordering refreshment immediately, — wliich I certainly should have 
done, but for the ominous whisper of a fellow in the crowd as we 
descended (of course a disinterested patron of the other house), who 
liissed into my ears, “ Ash to see the beds : ” which proposal, 
accordingly, I made before coming to any determination regarding 
supper. 

Tlie worthy landlady eluded my question several times with gi'eat 
skill and good-humour, but it became at length necessary to answer 
it ; which she did by putting on as confident an air as possible, and 
leading the way upstairs to a bedroom, where there was a good large 
comfortable bed certainly. 

The only objection to the bed, however, was that it contained a 
sick lady, whom the hostess proposed to eject without any ceremony, 
saying tliat she was a great deal better, and going to get up that 
very evening. However, none of us had the heart to tyrannise over 
lovely woman in so painful a situation, and the hostess had the grief 
of seeing four out of her five guests repair across the way to “ Bral- 
laghan’s ” or “ Gallagher’s Hotel,” — the name has fled from my 
memory, but it is the big hotel in the place; and unless the sick 


390 


THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK 


lady has quitted the other inn, which most likely she has done by 
this time, the English traveller will profit by this advice, and on 
arrival at Tarbert will have himself transported to “ Gallagher’s ” 
at once. 

The next morning a car carried us to Tarbert Point, where there 
is a pier not yet completed, and a Preventive station, and where the 
Shannon steamers touch, that ply between Kilrush and Limerick. 
Here lay the famous river before us, witli low banks and rich pastures 
on either side. 


CHAPTER XIV 

LIMERICK 


A CAPITAL steamer, which on this day was thronged with 
people, carried us for about four hours down the noble 
stream and landed us at Limerick quay. The character 
of the landscape on either side the stream is not particularly 
picturesque, but large, liberal, and prosperous. Gentle sweeps of 
rich meadows and cornfields cover the banks, and some, though not 
too many, gentlemen’s parks and plantations rise here and there. 
But the landscape was somehow more pleasing than if it had been 
merely picturesque ; and, especially after coming out of that deso- 
late county of Kerry, it was pleasant for the eye to rest upon this 
peaceful, rich, and generous scene. The first aspect of Limerick is 
very smart and pleasing : fine neat quays with considerable liveliness 
and bustle, a very handsome bridge (the Wellesley Bridge) before 
the spectator ; who, after a walk through two long and flourishing 
streets, stops at length at one of the best inns in Ireland — the 
large, neat, and prosperous one kept by Mr. Cruise. Except at 
Youghal, and the poor fellow whom the Englishman belaboured at 
Glengariff, Mr. Cruise is the only landlord of an inn I have had 
the honour to see in Ireland. I believe these gentlemen commonly 
(and very naturally) prefer riding with the hounds, or manly sports, 
to attendance on their guests ; and the landladies, if they prefer to 
play the piano, or to have a game of cards in the parlour, only show 
a taste at which no one can wonder : for who can expect a lady to 
be troubling herself with vulgar chance-customers, or looking after 
Molly in the bedroom or waiter Tim in the cellar 1 

Now, beyond this piece of information regarding the excellence 
of Mr. Cruise’s hotel, which every traveller knows, the Avriter of 
this doubts very much whether he has anything to say about 
Limerick that is worth the trouble of saying or reading. I can’t 
attempt to describe the Shannon, only to say that on board the 
steamboat there Avas a piper and a bugler, a hundred of genteel 
persons coming back from donkey-riding and bathing at Kilkee, a 
couple of heaps of raw hides that smelt very foully, a score of 
women nursing children, and a lobster-vendor, who voAved to me on 


THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK 


392 

his honour that he gave eightpence apiece for his fish, and that he 
had boiled them only the day before ; but when I produced the 
Guide-book, and solemnly told him to swear upon that to the truth 
of his statement, the lobster-seller turned away quite abashed, and 
would not be brought to support his previous assertion at all. Well, 
this is no description of the Shannon, as you have no need to be 
told, and other travelling cockneys will, no doubt, meet neither 
piper nor lobster-seller nor raw hides ; nor, if they come to the inn 
where this is written, is it probable that they will hear, as I do 
this present moment, two fellows with red whiskers, and immense 
])omp and noise and blustering with the waiter, conclude by ordering 
a pint of ale between them. All that one can hope to do is, to give 
a sort of notion of the movement and manners of the people ; pre- 
tending by no means to offer a description of places, but simply an 
account of what one sees in them. 

So that if any traveller after staying two days in Limerick 
should think fit to present the reader with forty or fifty pages of 
dissertation upon the antiquities and history of the place, upon the 
state of commerce, religion, education, the public may be pretty 
well sure that the traveller has been at work among the guide- 
books, and filching extracts from the topographical and local works. 

They say there are three towns to make one Limerick : tliere is 
the Irish Town on the Clare side ; the English Town with its old 
castle (which has sustained a deal of battering and blows from 
Danes, from fierce Irish kings, from English warriors who took an 
interest in the place, Henry Secundians, Elizabethians, Cromwellians, 
and, vice versa, Jacobites, King Williamites, — and nearly escaped 
being in the hands of the Robert Emmettites) ; and finally the dis- 
trict called Newtown-Pery. In walking through this latter tract, 
you are at first half led to believe that you are arrived in a second 
Liverpool, so tall are the warehouses and broad the quays ; so neat 
and trim a street of near a mile which stretches before you. But 
even this mile-long street does not, in a few minutes, appear to be 
so wealthy and prosperous as it shows at a first glance ; for of the 
population that throng the streets, two-fifths are barefooted women, 
and two-fifths more ragged men : and the most part of the shops 
which have a grand show vdth them appear, when looked into, to 
be no better than they should be, being empty makeshift-looking 
places with their best goods outside. 

Here, in this handsome street too, is a handsome club-house, 
with plenty of idlers, you may be sure, lolling at the portico ; like- 
wise you see numerous young officers, with very tight waists and 
absurd brass shell-epaulettes to their little absurd frock-coats, walk- 
ing the pavement — the dandies of the street. Then you behold 


LIMERICK 


393 

whole troops of pear-, apple-, and plum-women, selling very raw 
green-looking fruit, which, indeed, it is a wonder that any one should 
eat and live. The houses are bright red — the street is full and gay, 
carriages and cars in plenty go jingling by — dragoons in red are 
every now and then clattering up the street, and as upon every car 
which passes with ladies in it you are sure (I don’t know how it is) 
to see a pretty one, the great street of Limerick is altogether a very 
brilliant and animated sight. 

If the ladies of the place are pretty, indeed the vulgar are 
scarcely less so. I never saw a greater number of kind, pleasing, 
clever-looking faces among any set of people. There seem, however, 
to be two sorts of physiognomies which are common : the pleasing 
and somewhat melancholy one before mentioned, and a square, high- 
cheeked, flat-nosed physiognomy not uncommonly accompanied by 
a hideous staring head of dry red hair. Except, however, in the 
latter case, the hair flowing loose and long is a pretty characteristic 
of the women of the country ; many a fair one do you see at the 
door of the cabin, or the poor shop in the town, combing com- 
placently that “greatest ornament of female beauty,” as Mr. 
Rowland justly calls it. 

The generality of the women here seem also much better clothed 
than in Kerry ; and I saw many a one going barefoot whose gown 
was nevertheless a good one, and whose cloak was of fine cloth. 
Likewise it must be remarked that the beggars in Limerick w^ere 
by no means so numerous as those in Cork, or in many small places 
through which I have passed. There were but five, strange to say, 
round the mail-coach as we went aw^ay ; and, indeed, not a great 
number in the streets. 

The belles-lettres seem to me by no means so well cultivated 
here as in Cork. I looked in vain for a Limerick guide-book : I 
saw but one good shop of books, and a little trumpery circulating 
library, which seemed to be provided with those immortal works 
of a year old — which, having been sold for half-a-guinea the volume 
at first, are suddenly found to be worth only a shilling. Among 
these, let me mention, with perfect resignation to the decrees of 
fate, the works of one Titmarsh : they were rather smartly bound 
by an enterprising publisher, and I looked at them in Bishop 
Murphy’s Library at Cork, in a book-shop in the remote little town 
of Ennis, and elsewhere, with a melancholy tenderness. Poor 
flowerets of a season ! (and a very short season too), let me be 
allowed to salute your scattered leaves with a passing sigh ! . . . 
Besides the book-shops, I observed in the long best street of Limerick 
a half-dozen of what are called French shops, with nicknacks. 
German-silver chimney ornaments, and paltry finery. In the 


394 


THE lEISH SKETCH BOOK 


windows of these you saw a card with “ Cigars ” ; in the book-shop, 
“ Cigars ” ; at the grocer’s, the whisky-shop, “ Cigars ” : everybody 
sells the noxious weed, or makes believe to sell it, and I know no 
surer indication of a struggling uncertain trade than that same 
placard of “ Cigars.” I went to buy some of the pretty Limerick 
gloves (they are chiefly made, as I have since discovered, at Cork). 
I think the man who sold them had a jjatent from tlie Queen, or 
his Excellency, or both, in his window : but, seeing a friend pass 
just as I entered the shop, he brushed past, and held his friend in 
conversation for some minutes in the street, — about the Killarney 
races no doubt, or the fun going on at Kilkee. I might have swept 
away a bagful of walnut-shells containing the flimsy gloves : but 
instead walked out, making him a low bow, and saying I would 
call next week. He said “ wouldn’t I wait 1 ” and resumed his con- 
versation ; and, no doubt, by this way of doing business, is making 
a handsome independence. I asked one of the ten thousand fruit- 
women the price of her green pears. “ Twopence apiece,” she said ; 
and there were two little ragged beggars standing by, who were 
munching the fruit. A book-shopwoman made me i)ay threepence 
for a bottle of ink wdiich usually costs a penny; a i)otato-wmman 
told me that her potatoes cost fourteenpence a stone : and all these 
ladies treated the stranger with a leering wheedling servility which 
made me long to box tlieir ears, were it not that the man who lays 
his hand upon a wmman is an &c., whom ’twere gross flattery to 
call a what-d’ye-call-’ini. By the way, the man who played Duke, 
Aranza at Cork delivered the celebrated claptrap above alluded to 
as follows ; — 

“ The man who lays his hand upon a woman, 

Save in the way of kindness, is a 'vdllain. 

Whom ’twere a gross piece of flattery to call a coward ; ” 

and looked round calmly for the applause, which deservedly followed 
his new reading of the passage. 

To return to the apple-women : — legions of ladies were employed 
through the town upon that traffic ; there were really thousands of 
them, clustering upon the bridges, squatting down in doorways and 
vacant sheds for temporary markets, marching and crying their 
sour goods in all the crowded lanes of the city. After you get out 
of the Main Street the handsome part of the town is at an end, 
and you suddenly find yourself in such a labyrinth of busy swarm- 
ing poverty and squalid commerce as never was seen — no, not in 
Saint Giles’s, where Jew and Irishman side by side exhibit their 
genius for dirt. Here every house almost was a half ruin, and 
swarming with people : in the cellars you looked down and saw a 


LIMERICK 


395 

barrel of herrings, which a merchant was dispensing ; or a sack of 
meal, which a poor dirty woman sold to people poorer and dirtier 
than herself : above was a tinman, or a shoemaker, or other crafts- 
man, his battered ensign at the door, and his small wares peering 
through the cracked panes of his shop. As for the ensign, as a 
matter of course the name is never written in letters of the same 
size. You read — 


PAT'< HANiaM^'^ 
TA ILOR. 


JAML^ 


SHOE 

MAK 


or some similar signboard. High and low, in this country, they 
begin things on too large a scale. They begin churches too big and 
can’t finish them ; mills and houses too big, and are ruined before 
they are done ; letters on signboards too big, and are up in a corner 
before the inscription is finished. There is something quite strange, 
really, in this general consistency. 

Well, over James Hurley, or Pat Hanlahan, you will most 
likely see another board of another tradesman, with a window to 
the full as curious. Above Tim Carthy evidently lives anotlier 
family. There are long-haired girls of fourteen at every one of tlie 
windows, and dirty children everywhere. In the cellars, look at 
them in dingy white nightcaps over a bowd of stirabout; in the 
shop, paddling up and down the ruined steps, or issuing from 
beneath the black counter ; up above, see the girl of fourteen is 
tossing and dangling one of them ; and a pretty tender sight it is, 
in the midst of this filth and wretchedness, to see the women and 
children together. It makes a sunshine in the dark place, and 
somehow half reconciles one to it. Cliildren are everywhere. Look 
out of the nasty streets into the still more nasty black lanes : there 
they are, sprawling at every door and court, paddling in every 
puddle; and in about a fair proportion to every six children an 
old woman — a very old, bleared-eyed, ragged woman — who makes 
believe to sell something out of a basket, and is perpetually calling 
upon the name of the Lord. For every three ragged old women 
you will see two ragged old men, praying and moaning like the 
females. And there is no lack of young men, either, though I never 
could make out what they were about : they loll about the street, 
chiefly conversing in knots ; and in every street you will be pretty 
sure to see a recruiting sergeant, with gay ribbons in his cap, loiter- 
ing about with an eye upon the other loiterers there. The buzz 
and hum and chattering of this crowd is quite inconceivable to us 


THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK 


396 

in England, where a crowd is generally silent. As a person with a 
decent coat passes, they stop in their talk and say, “ God bless you 
for a fine gentleman ! ” In tliese crowded streets, where all are 
beggars, the beggary is but small : only the very old and hideous 
venture to ask for a penny, otherwise the competition would be too 
great. 

As for the buildings that one lights upon every now and then 
in the midst of such scenes as this, they are scarce worth the 
trouble to examine : occasionally you come on a chapel with sham 
Gothic windows and a little belfry, one of the Catholic places 
of worship ; then, placed in some quiet street, a neat-looking Dis- 
senting meeting-house. Across the river yonder, as you issue out 
from the street, is a handsome hospital ; near it the old cathedral, 
a barbarous old turreted edifice — of tlie fourteenth century it is 
said : how different to the sumptuous elegance which characterises 
the English and Continental churches of the same period ! Passing 
by it, and walking down other streets, — black, ruinous, swarming, 
dark, hideous, — you come upon the barracks and the walks of the 
old castle, and from it on to an old bridge, from which the view 
is a fine one. On one side are the grey bastions of the castle ; 
beyond them, in the midst of the broad stream, stands a huge 
mill that looks like another castle ; further yet is the liandsome 
new Wellesley Bridge, with some little craft upon the river, and 
the red warehouses of the New Town looking j^rosperous enough. 
The Irish Town stretches away to the right ; there are pretty 
villas beyond it ; and on the bridge are walking twenty-four young 
girls, in X)arties of four and five, with their arms round each other’s 
waists, swaying to and fro, and singing or chattering, as happy 
as if they had shoes to their feet. Yonder you see a dozen pair 
of red legs glittering in the water, their owners being employed in 
washing their own or other peoi)le’s rags. 

The Guide-book mentions that one of the aboriginal forests 
of the country is to be seen at a few miles from Limerick, and 
tliinking that an aboriginal forest would be a huge discovery, and 
form an instructive and delightful feature of the present work, I 
hired a car in order to visit the same, and jdeased myself with 
visions of gigantic oaks, Druids, Norma, wildernesses and awful 
gloom, which would fill the soul with horror. The romance of 
the place was heightened by a fact stated by the carman, viz., 
that until late years robberies were very frequent about the wood ; 
the inhabitants of the district being a wild lawless race. Moreover, 
there are numerous castles round about, — and for what can a man 
wish more than robbers, castles, and an aboriginal wood ? 

The way to these wonderful sights lies through the undulating 


THE ABORIGINAL FOREST 


397 


grounds which border the Shannon; and though the view is by 
no means a fine one, I know few that are pleasanter than the 
sight of tliese rich, golden, peaceful plains, with the full harvest 
weaving on them and just ready for the sickle. The hay harvest 
was likewise just being concluded, and the air loaded with the rich 
odour of the hay. Above the trees, to your left, you saw the 
mast of a ship, perhaps moving along, and every now and then 
caught a glimpse of tlie Shannon, and the low grounds and planta- 
tions of the opposite county of Limerick. Not an unpleasant 
addition to the landscape, too, was a sight which I do not remember 
to have witnessed often in this country — that of several small and 
decent farmhouses, with their stacks and sheds and stables, giving 
an air of neatness and plenty that the poor cabin with its potato- 
patch does not present. Is it on account of the small farms that 
the land seems richer and better cultivated here than in most other 
parts of the country'? Some of tlie houses in the midst of the 
warm summer landscape had a strange appearance, for it is often 
the fashion to whitewash the roofs of the houses, leaving the slates 
of the walls of their natural colour : hence, and in the evening 
especially, contrasting with the purple sky, the house-toi)s often 
looked as if they were covered with snow. 

According to the Guide-book’s promise, the castles began soon 
to appear; at one point we could see tliree of these ancient 
mansions in a line, each seemingly with its little grove of old trees, 
ill the midst of the bare but fertile country. By this time, too, we 
had got into a road so abominably bad and rocky, that I began to 
believe m.ore and more with regard to the splendour of the aboriginal 
forest, which must be most aboriginal and ferocious indeed when 
approached by such a savage path. After ' travelling through a 
couple of lines of wall with plantations on either side, I at length 
became impatient as to the forest, and, much to my disappointment, 
was told this was it. For the fact is, that though the forest has 
always been there, the trees have not, the proprietors cutting them 
regularly when grown to no great height, and the monarchs of the 
woods which I saw round about would scarcely have afforded timber 
for a bed-post. Nor did any robbers make their appearance in this 
wilderness ; with which disappointment, however, I was more willing 
to put up than with the former one. 

But if the wood and the robbers did not come up to my romantic 
notions, the old Castle of Bunratty fully answered them, and in- 
deed should be made the scene of a romance, in three volumes at 
least. 

“ It is a huge, square tower, with four smaller ones at each 
angle ; and you mount to tlie entrance by a steep flight of steps. 


398 


THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK 


being commanded all the way by the crossbows of two of the Lord 
De Clare’s retainers, the points of whose weapons may be seen lying 
upon the ledge of the little narrow meurtriere on each side of the 
gate. A venerable seneschal, with the keys of office, presently 
opens the little back postern, and you are admitted to the great 
hall — a noble chamber, some seventy feet in length and 

thirty high. ’Tis hung round with a thousand trophies of war and 
chase, — the golden helmet and spear of tlie Irish king, the long 
yellow mantle he wore, and the huge brooch that bound it. Hugo 
De Clare slew him before the castle in 1 305, when he and his kernes 
attacked it. Less successful in 1314, the gallant Hugo saw his 
village of Bunratty burned round his tower by the son of the 
slaughtered O’Neil; and, sallying out to avenge the insult, was 
brought back — a corpse ! Ah ! what was the pang that shot 
through the fair bosom of the Lady Adela when she knew that 
’twas the hand of Redmond O'' Neil sped the shaft which slew her 
sire ! 

“You listen to this sad story, reposing on an oaken settle 
(covered with deer’s-skin taken in the aboriginal forest of Carclow’ 
hard by) placed at the enormous hall-fire. Here sits Thonom an 
Diaoul, ‘ Dark Thomas,’ the blind harper of the race of De Clare, 
who loves to tell the deeds of the lordly family. ‘ Penetrating in 
disguise,’ he continues, ‘into the castle, Redmond of the golden 
locks sought an interview with the Lily of Bunratty ; but she 
screamed when she saw him under the disguise of the gleeman, 
and said, “ My father’s blood is in the hall ! ” At this, up started 
fierce Sir Ranulph. “ Ho, Bludyer ! ” he cried to his squire, 
“ call me the hangman and Father John ; seize me, vassals, yon 
villain in gleeman’s guise, and hang him on the gallows on the 
tower 1 ” ’ 

“ ‘ Will it please ye walk to the roof of the old castle and 
see the beam on which the lords of the place execute the re- 
fractory?’ ‘Nay, marry,’ say you, ‘by my spurs of knighthood, 
I have seen hanging enough in merry England, and care not to 
see the gibbets of Irish kernes.’ The harper would have taken 
fire at this speech refiecting on his country ; but luckily here 
Gulph, your English squire, entered from the pantler (with wdiom 
he had been holding a parley), and brought a manchet of 
bread, and bade ye, in the Lord De Clare’s name, crush a cup 
of Ypocras, well spiced, imrdi^ and by the fair hands of the Lady 
Adela. 

“ ‘ The Lady Adela ! ’ say you, starting up in amaze. ‘ Is not 
this the year of grace 1600, and lived she not three hundred years 
syne ? ’ 


THE BUNRATTY ROMANCE 


399 . 


“‘Yes, Sir Knight, but Bimratty tower hath another Lily : 
will it please you see your chamber % ’ 

“ So saying, the seneschal leads you up a winding stair in one 
of the turrets, past one little dark chamber and another, without a 
fireplace, without rushes (how different from the stately houses of 
Nonsuch or Audley End !), and, leading you through another vast 
chamber above the baronial hall, similar in size, but decorated with 
tapestries and rude carvings, you pass the little chapel (‘Marry,’ 
says the steward, ‘many would it not hold, and many do not 
come ! ’) until at last you are located in the little cell appropriated 
to you. Some rude attempts have been made to render it fitting 
for the stranger ; but, though more neatly arranged than the hundred 
other little chambers which the castle contains, in sooth ’tis scarce 
fitted for the serving-man, much more for Sir Reginald, the English 
knight. 

“ While you are looking at a bouquet of flowers, which lies on 
the settle — magnolias, geraniums, the blue flowers of the cactus, and 
in the midst of the bouquet, one lily ; whilst you wonder whose 
fair hands could have culled the flowers — hark ! the horns are blow- 
ing at the drawbridge and the warder lets the portcullis down. You 
rush to your window, a stalwart knight rides over the gate, the 
hoofs of his black courser clanging upon the planks. A host of 
wild retainers wait round about him : see, four of them carry a 
stag, that hath been slain no doubt in the aboriginal forest of 
Carclow. ‘ By my fay ! ’ say you, ‘ ’tis a stag of ten.’ 

“ But who is that yonder on the grey palfrey, conversing so 
prettily, and holding the sportive animal with so light a rein? — a 
light green riding-habit and ruff, a little hat with a green plume — 
sure it must be a lady, and a fair one. She looks up. 0 blessed 
Mother of Heaven, that look ! those eyes that smile, those sunny 
golden ringlets ! It is — it is the Lady Adela : the Lily of 
Bunrat ” 

If the reader cannot finish the other two volumes for him or 
herself, he or she never deserves to have a novel from a circulating 
library again : for my part, I will take my affidavit the English 
knight will marry the Lily at the end of the third volume, having 
previously slain the other suitor at one of the multifarious sieges of 
Limerick. And I beg to say that the historical part of this romance 
has been extracted carefully from the Guide-book ; the topographical 
and descriptive portion being studied on the spot. A policeman 
shows you over it, halls, chapels, galleries, gibbets and all. The 
huge old tower was, until late years, inhabited by the family of 
the proprietor, who built himself a house in the midst of it : but 
he has since built another in the park opposite, and half-a-dozen 


400 


THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK 


“ Peelers,” with a commodity of wives and children, now inhalnt 
Bunratty. On the gate where we entered were numerons placards 
offering rewards for the apprehension of various country oftenders ; 
and a turnpike, a bridge, and a quay have sprung up from the 
place which Red Redmond (or anybody else) burned. 


On our road to Galway the next day, we were carried once 
more by the old tower, and for a considerable distance along the 
fertile banks of the Fergus lake, and a river which pours itself into 
the Shannon. The first town we come to is Castle Clare, which 
lies conveniently on the river, Avith a castle, a good bridge, and 
many quays and warehouses, near which a small ship or two Avere 
lying. The place Avas once the chief toAvn of the county, but is 
wretched and ruinous now, being made up for the most part of 
miserable thatched cots, round Avhich you see the usual dusky 
population. The drive hence to Ennis lies through a country which 
is by no means so pleasant as that rich one AA'e have passed through, 
being succeeded “by that craggy, bleak, pastoral district Avhich 
occupies so large a portion of the limestone district of Clare.” Ennis, 
likewise, stands upon the Fergus — a busy little narroAV-streeted, 
foreign-looking town, approached by half-a-mile of thatched cots, 
in which I am not asliamed to confess that I saw some as 
pretty faces as over any half-mile of country I ever travelled in 
my life. 

A great light of the Catholic Church, Avho was of late a candle- 
stick in our oaaui communion, Avas on the coach with us, reading 
devoutly out of a breviary on many occasions along the road. A 
crowd of black coats and heads, Avith that indescribable look A\diich 
belongs to the Catholic clergy, Avere eA’idently on the look-out for 
the coach ; and as it stopped, one of them came up to me AAuth a 
loAv boAv, and asked if I Avas the Honourable and Reverend Mr. 

S ? How I Avish I had ansAvered him I Avas ! It w’ould have 

been a grand scene. The respect paid to this gentleman’s descent 
is quite absurd : the papers bandy his title about Avith pleased 
emphasis — the Galw^ay paper calls him the very reverend. There 
is something in the love for rank almost childish : witness the 
adoration of George IV. ; the pompous joy Avith Avhich John Tuam 
records his correspondence Avith a great man ; the continual My- 
Lording of the Bishops, the Right- Honourabling of Mr. O’Connell 
— which title his party papers delight on all occasions to give him 
— nay, the delight of that great man himself Avhen first he attained 
the dignity : he figured in his robes in the most good-humoured 


ENNIS 


401 


simple delight at having them, and went to church forthwith in 
them. As if such a man wanted a title before his name ! 

At Ennis, as well as everywhere else in Ireland, there were of 
course the regular number of swaggering-looking buckeens and 
shabby-genteel idlers to watch the arrival of the mail-coach. A 
poor old idiot, with his grey hair tied up in bows, and with a 
ribbon behind, thrust out a very fair soft hand with taper fingers, 
and told me, nodding his head very wistfully, that he had no father 
nor mother : upon which score he got a penny. Nor did the other 
beggars round the carriage who got none seem to grudge the poor 
fellow’s good fortune. I think when one poor wretch has a piece 
of luck, the others seem glad here : and they promise to pray for 
you just the same if you give as if you refuse. 

The town was swarming witii peoffie : the little dark streets, 
which twist about in all directions, being full of clieap merchandise 
and its vendors. Whether there are many buyers, I can’t say. 
This is written opposite the market-place in Galway, where I have 
watched a stall a hundred times in the course of the last three 
hours and seen no money taken : but at every place I come to, I 
can’t help wondering at the numbers ; it seems market-day every- 
where — apples, pigs, and potatoes being sold all over the kingdom. 
There seem to be some good shops in those narrow streets : among 
others, a decent little library, where I bought, for eighteenpence, 
six volumes of works strictly Irish, that will serve for a half-hour’s 
gossip on the next rainy day. 

The road hence to Gort carried us at first by some dismal, 
lonely-looking, reedy lakes, through a melancholy country ; an open 
village standing here and there, with a big chapel in tJie midst of 
it, almost always unfinished in some point or other. Crossing at 
a bridge near a place called Tubbor, the coachman told us we were 
in the famous county of Galway, which all readers of novels admire 
in the warlike works of Maxwell and Lever ; and, dismal as the 
country had been in Clare, I think on the northern side of the 
bridge it was dismaller still — the stones not only appearing in the 
character of hedges, but strewing over whole fields, in which sheep 
were browsing as well as they could. 

We rode for miles through this stony dismal district, seeing 
more lakes now and anon, with fellows spearing eels in the midst. 
Then we passed the plantations of Lord Gort’s Castle of Lough- 
cooter, ami presently came to the town which bears his name, or 
vice versd. It is a regularly-built little place, with a square and 
street : but it looked as if it wondered how the deuce it got into the 
midst of such a desolate country, and seemed to bore itself there 
considerably. It had nothing to do, and no society. 

5 2 c 


402 


THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK 


A short time before arriving at Oranmore, one has glimpses of 
the sea, which comes opportunely to relieve the dulness of the 
land. Between Gort and that place we passed through little but 
the most woeful country, in the midst of which was a village, where 
a horse-fair was held, and where (upon the word of the coachman) 
all the bad horses of the country were to be seen. The man was 
commissioned, no doubt, to buy for his employers, for two or three 
merchants were on the look-out for him, and trotted out their 
cattle by the side of the coach. A very good, neat-looking, smart- 
trotting chestnut horse, of seven years old, was offered by the 
owner for <£8; a neat brown mare for £10, and a better (as I 
presume) for £14 ; but all looked very respectable, and I have the 
coachman’s word for it that they were good serviceable 'horses. 
Oranmore, with an old castle in the midst of the village, woods, 
and park plantations round about, and the bay beyond it, has 
a pretty and romantic look; and the drive of about four miles 
thence to Galway is the most picturesque part perhaps of the 
fifty miles’ ride from Limerick. The road is tolerably wooded. 
You see the town itself, with its huge old church- tower, stretching 
along the bay, “ backed by hills linking into the long chain of 
mountains which stretch across Connemara and the Joyce country.” 
A suburb of cots that seems almost endless has, however, an end 
at last among the houses of the town : and a little fleet of a couple 
of hundred fishing-boats was manoeuvring in the bright w^aters 
of the bay. 


CHAPTER XV 


GALIVAY—^^KILROY'S HOTEL”— GALIFAY NIGHTS* ENTERTAIN- 
MENTS-FIRST NIGHT: AN EVENING WITH CAPTAIN FREENY 

W HEN it is stated that, throughout the town of Galway, 
you cannot get a cigar which costs more than twopence, 
Londoners may imagine the strangeness and remoteness 
of the place. The rain poured down for two days after our arrival 
at “ Kilroy’s Hotel.” An umbrella under such circumstances is a 
poor resource : self-contemplation is for more amusing ; especially 
smoking, and a game at cards, if any one will be so good as to 
play. V 

But there was no one in the hotel coffee-room who was inclined 
for the sport. The company there, on the day of our arrival, con- 
sisted of two coach-passengers, — a Frenchman who came from Sligo, 
and ordered mutton-chops and /raid potatoes for dinner by himself ; 
a turbot which cost two shillings, and in Billingsgate would have 
been worth a guinea ; and a couple of native or inhabitant bachelors 
who frequented the tahle-d^hote. 

By the way, besides these there were at dinner two turkeys (so 
that Mr. Kilroy’s two-shilling ordinary was by no means ill supplied) ; 
and, as a stranger, I had the honour of carving these animals, which 
were dispensed in rather a singular way. There are, as it is gener- 
ally known, to two turkeys four wings. Of the four passengers, one 
ate no turkey, one had a pinion, anotlier the remaining part of the 
wing, and the fourth gentleman took the other three wings for his 
share. Does everybody in Galway eat tliree wings when there are 
two turkeys for dinner ? One has heard wonders of the country, — 
the dashing, daring, duelling, desperate, rollicking, whisky-drinking 
people : but this wonder beats all. When I asked tlie Galway 
turkiphagus (there is no other word, for Turkey was invented long 
after Greece) “if he would take a third wing?” with a peculiar 
satiric accent on the words third iving^ wdnch cannot be expressed 
in writing, but wdnch the occasion fully merited, I thought perhaps 
that, following the custom of the country, where everybody, accord- 
ing to Maxwell and Lever, challenges everybody else,— I thought 
the Galwagian would call me out • but no such thing. He only 


404 


THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK 


said, “ If you plase, sir,” in the blandest way in the world ; and 
gobbled up the limb in a twinkling. 

As an encouragement, too, for persons meditating that important 
change of condition, the gentleman was a teetotaller : he took but 
one glass of water to that intolerable deal of bubblyjock. Galway 
must be very much changed since the days when Maxwell and 
Lever knew it. Three turkey-wings and a glass of water ! But 

the man cannot be the representative of a class, that is clear : it is 

physically and arithmetically impossible. They can’t all eat three 
wings of two turkeys at dinner : the turkeys could not stand it, let 
alone the men. These wings must have been “non usitatse (nec 

tenues) pennse.” But no more of these flights ; let us come to 

sober realities. 

The fact is, that when the rain is pouring down in the streets 
the traveller has little else to remark except these peculiarities of 
his fellow-travellers jind inn-sojourners ; and, lest one should be led 
into further personalities, it is best to quit that water-drinking 
gormandiser at once, and retiring to a private apartment, to devote 
one’s self to quiet observation and the acquisition of knowledge, 
either by looking out of the window and examining mankind, or by 
l^erusing books, and so living with past heroes and ages. 

As for the knowledge to be had by looking out of window, it is 
this evening not much. A great, wide, blank, bleak, water- whipped 
square lies before the bedroom window; at the opposite side of 
which is to be seen the opposition hotel, looking even more bleak 
and cheerless than that over whicli Mr. Kilroy presides. Large 
dismal warehouses and private houses form three sides of the 
square ; and in the midst is a bare pleasure-ground surrounded by 
a growth of gaunt iron railings, the only plants seemingly in the 
place. Three triangular edifices that look somewhat like gibbets 
stand in the paved part of the square, but the victims that are 
consigned to their fate under these triangles are only potatoes, 
which are weighed there ; and, in spite of the torrents of rain, a 
crowd of barefooted red-petticoated women, and men in grey coats 
and flower-pot hats, are pursuing their little bargains with the 
utmost calmness. The rain seems to make no impression on the 
males ; nor do the women guard against it more than by flinging a 
petticoat over their heads, and so stand bargaining and chattering 
in Irish, tlieir figures indefinitely reflected in the shining, varnished 
pavement. Donkeys and pony-carts innumerable stand around, 
similarly reflected ; and in the baskets upon these vehicles you see 
shoals of herrings lying. After a short space this prospect becomes 
somewhat tedious, and one looks to other sources of consolation. 

The eighteenpennyworth of little books purcliased at Ennis in 


BOOKS IN IRELAND 


405 


the morning came here most agreeably to my aid ; and indeed they 
afford many a pleasant hour’s reading. Like the “ Biblioth^que 
Grise,” which one sees in the French cottages in the provinces, and 
the German “ Volksbiicher,” both of which contain stores of old 
legends that are still treasured in the country, these yellow-covered 
books are prepared for the people chiefly ; and have been sold for 
many long years before the march of knowledge began to banish 
Fancy out of the world, and gave us, in place of the old fairy tales. 
Penny Magazines and similar wholesome works. Where are the 
little harlequin-backed story-books that used to be read by children 
in England some thirty years ago ? Where such authentic narratives 
as “ Captain Bruce’s Travels,” “ The Dreadful Adventures of 
Sawney Bean,” &c., which were commonly supplied to little boys at 
school by the same old lady wiio sold oranges and alicompayne 1 — 
they are all gone out of the world, and replaced by such books as 
“ Conversations on Chemistry,” “ The Little Geologist,” “ Peter 
Parley’s Tales about the Binomial Theorem,” and the like. The 
world will be a dull world some hundreds of years hence, when 
Fancy shall be dead, and ruthless Science (that has no more bowels 
than a steam-engine) has killed her. 

It is a comfort, meanwhile, to come on occasions on some of the 
good old stories and biographies. These books were evidently written 
before the useful had attained its present detestable popularity. 
There is nothing useful here^ tliat’s certain : and a man will be 
jnizzled to extract a precise moral out of the “ Adventures of Mr. 
James Freeiiy ” ; or out of the legends in the “ Hibernian Tales ” ; 
or out of the lamentable tragedy of the “Battle of Aughrim,” writ 
in most doleful Anglo-Irish verse. But are we to reject all things 
that have not a moral tacked to them 1 “ Is there any moral shut 

within the bosom of the rose ? ” And yet, as the same noble poet 
sings (giving a smart slap to the utility people the while), “ useful 
applications lie in art and nature,” and every man may find a moral 
suited to his mind in them ; or, if not a moral, an occasion for 
moralising. 

Honest Freeny’s adventures (let us begin with history and 
historic tragedy, and leave fancy for future consideration), if they 
have a moral, have that dubious one which the poet admits may be 
elicited from a rose ; and which every man may select according to 
his mind. And surely this is a far better and more comfortable 
system of moralising than that in the fable-books, where you are 
obliged to accept the story with the inevitable moral corollary that 
will stick close to it. 

Whereas, in Freeny’s life, one man may see the evil of drinking, 
another the harm of horse-racing, another the danger attendant on 


406 


THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK 


early marriage, a fourth the exceeding inconvenience as well as 
hazard of the heroic highwayman’s life — which a certain Ainsworth, 
in company with a certain Cruikshank, has represented as so poetic 
and brilliant, so prodigal of delightful adventure, so adorned with 
champagne, gold lace, and brocade. 

And the best part of worthy Freeny’s tale is the noble naivete 
and simplicity of the hero as he recounts his own adventures, and 
the utter unconsciousness that he is narrating anything wonderful. 
It is the way of all great men, who recite their great actions 
modestly, and as if they were matters of course ; as indeed to them 
they are. A common tyro, having perpetrated a great deed, would 
be amazed and flurried at his own action ; whereas I make no doubt 
the Duke of Wellington, after a great victory, took his tea and went 
to bed just as quietly as he would after a dull debate in the House 
of Lords. And so with Freeny, — his great and charming character- 
istic is grave simplicity : he does his work ; he knows his danger as 
well as another ; but he goes through his fearful duty quite quietly 
and easily, and not with the least air of bravado, or the smallest 
notion that he is doing anything uncommon. 

It is related of Carter, the Lion-King, that when he was a boy, 
and exceedingly fond of gingerbread-nuts, a relation gave him a 
parcel of those delicious cakes, which the child put in his pocket 
just as he was called on to go into a cage with a very large and 
roaring lion. He had to put his head into the forest-monarch’s 
jaws, and leave it there for a considerable time, to the delight of 
thousands : as is even now the case ; and the interest was so much 
the greater, as the child was exceedingly innocent, rosy-cheeked, and 
pretty. To have seen that little flaxen head bitten off by the lion 
would have been a far more pathetic spectacle than that of the 
decapitation of some grey-bearded old unromantic keeper, who had 
served out raw meat and stirred up the animals with a pole any time 
these twenty years : and the interest rose in consequence. 

While the little darling’s head was thus enjawed, what was the 
astonishment of everybody to see him put his hand into his little 
pocket, take out a paper — from the paper a gingerbread-nut — pop 
that gingerbread-nut into the lion’s mouth, then into his own, and 
so finish at least twopennyworth of nuts ! 

The excitement was delirious : the ladies, when he came out of 
chancery, were for doing what the lion had not done, and eating 
liim up — with kisses. And the only remark the young hero made 
was, “Uncle, tliem nuts wasn’t so crisp as them I had t’other 
day.” He never thought of the danger, — he only thought of 
the nuts. 

Thus it is with Freeny. It is fine to mark his bravery, and 


CAPTAIN FREENY 407 

to see how he cracks his simple philosophic nuts in the jaws of 
innumerable lions. 

At the commencement of the last century, honest Freeny’s 
father wjis house-steward in the family of Joseph Robbins, Esq., of 
Ballyduff; and, marrying Alice Phelan, a maid-servant in the same 
family, had issue James, the celebrated Irish hero. At a proper 
age James was put to school ; but being a nimble active lad, and 
his father’s mistress taking a fancy to him, he was presently brought 
to Ballyduff, where she had a private tutor to instruct him during 
the time which he could spare from his professional duty, which was 
that of pantry-boy in Mr. Robbins’s establishment. At an early 
age he began to neglect his duty ; and although his father, at the 
excellent Mrs. Robbins’s suggestion, corrected him very severely, the 
bent of his genius was not to be warped by the rod, and he attended 
“ all the little country dances, diversions, and meetings, and became 
what is called a good dancer ; his own natural inclinations hurrying 
him ” (as he finely says) “ into the contrary diversions.” 

He was scarce twenty years old when he married (a frightful 
proof of the wicked recklessness of his former courses), and set up 
in trade in Waterford; where, however, matters went so ill with 
him, that he was speedily without money, and <£50 in debt. He 
had, he says, not any way of paying the debt, except by selling his 
furniture or his riding-mare^ to both of which measures he was 
averse : for where is the gentleman in Ireland that can do without 
a horse to ridel Mr. Freeny and his riding-mare became soon 
famous, insomuch that a thief in gaol warned the magistrates of 
Kilkenny to beware of a one-eyed man with a mare. 

These unhappy circumstances sent him on the highway to seek 
a maintenance, and his first exploit was to rob a gentleman of 
£50 ; then he attacked another, against whom he “ had a secret 
disgust, because this gentleman had prevented his former master 
from- giving him a suit of clothes ” ! 

Urged by a noble resentment against this gentleman, Mr. 
Freeny, in company with a friend by the name of Reddy, robbed 
the gentleman’s house, taking therein £70 in money, which was 
honourably divided among the captors. 

“ We then,” continues Mr. Freeny, “ quitted the house with the 
booty, and came to Thomastown ; but not knowing how to dispose 
of the plate, left it with Reddy, who said he had a friend from 
whom he would get cash for it. In some time afterwards I asked 
him for the dividend of the cash he got for the plate, but all the 
satisfaction he gave me was, that it was lost, which occasioned me 
to have my ovm ojhnion of him.''' 


408 


THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK 


Mr. Freeiiy then robbed Sir William Townes’s servant of £14, 
in siicli an artful manner that everybody believed the servant had 
himself secreted the money ; and no doubt the rascal was turned 
adrift, and starved in consequence — a truly comic incident, and one 
that could be used, so as to provoke a great deal of laughter, in an 
historical work of which our champion should be the hero. 

The next enterprise of importance is that against the house 
of Colonel Palliser, which Treeny thus picturesquely describes. 
Coming with one of his spies close up to the house, Mr. Treeny 
watched the Colonel lighted to bed by a servant ; and thus, as he 
cleverly says, could judge “of the room the Colonel lay in.” 

“ Some time afterwards,” says Treeny, “ I observed a light 
up-stairs, by which I judged the servants were going to bed, and 
soon after observed that the candles were all quenched, by which I 
assured myself they were all gone to bed. I then came back to 
where the men were, and appointed Bulger, Motley, and Commons to 
go in along with me ; but Commons answered that he never had been 
in any house before where there were arms : upon which I asked 
the coward what business he had there, and swore I would as soon 
shoot him as look at him, and at the same time cocked a pistol to his 
breast ; but the rest of the men prevailed upon me to leave liim at the 
back of the house, where he might run away when he thought proper. 

“ I then asked Grace where did he choose to be posted : he 
answered ‘that he. would go where I pleased to order him,’ for 
which I thanked him. We then immediately came up to the 
house, lighted our candles, put Houlahan at the back of the house 
to prevent any person from coming out that way, and placed 
Hacket on my mare, well armed, at the front ; and I then broke 
one of the windows with a sledge, whereupon Bulger, Motley, 
Grace, and I got in ; upon which I ordered Motley and Grace to go 
upstairs, and Bulger and I would stay below, where we thought 
the greatest danger would be ; but I immediately, upon second 
consideration, for fear Motley or Grace should be daunted, desired 
Bulger to go up with them, and when he had fixed matters above, 
to come down, as I judged the Colonel lay below. I then went to 
the room where the Colonel was, and burst open the door ; upon 
which he said, ‘ Odds-wounds ! who’s there 'I ’ to which I answered, 

‘ A friend, sir ; ’ upon which he said, ‘ You lie ! by G — d, you are no 
friend of mine ! ’ I then said that I was, and his relation also, and 
that if he viewed me close he would know me, and begged of him 
not to be angry ; upon which I immediately seized a bullet-gun 
and case of pistols, which I observed hanging up in his room. I 
then quitted his room, and walked round the lower part of the 


A NIGHT WITH FREENY 


409 


house, thinking to meet some of the servants, whom I thought 
would strive to make their escape from the men who were above, 
and meeting none of them, I immediately returned to the Colonel’s 
room ; where I no sooner entered than he desired me to go out for 
a villain, and asked why I bred such disturbance in his house at 
that time of night. At the same time I snatched his breeches from 
under his head, wherein I got a small purse of gold, and said that 
abuse was not fit treatment for me who was his relation, and that 
it would hinder me of calling to see him ogain. I then demanded 
the key of his desk which stood in his room ; he answered he had 
no key ; upon which I said I had a very good key ; at the same 
time giving it a stroke with the sledge, which burst it open, wherein I 
got a purse of ninety guineas, a four-pound piece, two moidores, some 
small gold, and a large glove with twenty-eight guineas in silver. 

“ By this time Bulger and Motley came down-stairs to me, after 
rifling the house above. We then observed a closet inside his room, 
which we soon entered, and got therein a basket wherein there was 
plate to the value of three hundred pounds.” 

\ 

And so they took leave of Colonel Palliser, and rode away 
with their earnings. 

The story, as here narrated, has that simplicity which is beyond 
the reach of all except the very highest art ; and it is not high art 
certainly which Mr. Freeny can be said to possess, but a noble 
nature rather, which leads him thus grandly to describe scenes 
wherein he acted a great part. With what a gallant determination 
does he inform the coward Commons that he would shoot him “as 
won as look at him ” ; and liow dreadful he must have looked 
(with his one eye) as he uttered that sentiment ! But he left him, 
he says, with a grim humour, at the back of the house, “ where he 
might run away when he tlmught proper.” The Duke of Wellington 
must have read Mr. Freeny’s history in his youth (his Grace’s birth- 
place is not far from the scene of the other gallant Irishman’s 
exploit), for the Duke acted in precisely a similar way by a Belgian 
Colonel at Waterloo. 

It must be painful to great and successful commanders to think 
how their gallant comrades and lieutenants, partners of their toil, 
their feelings, and their fame, are separated from them by time, by 
death, by estrangement — nay, sometimes by treason. Commons is 
off, disappearing noiseless into the deep night, whilst his comrades 
perform the work of danger ; and Bulger, — Bulger, who in the 
above scene acts so gallant a part, and in whom Mr. Freeny places 
so much confidence — actually went away to England, carrying off 
“some plate, some shirts, a gold watch, and a diamond ring” of 


410 


THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK 


the Captain’s ; and, though he returned to his native country, the 
valuables did not return with him, on which the Captain swore he 
would blow his brains out. As for poor Grace, he was hanged, 
much to his leader’s sorrow, who says of him that he was “the 
faithfullest of liis spies.” Motley was sent to Naas gaol for the 
very robbery : and though Captain Freeny does not mention his 
ultimate fate, ’tis probable he was hanged too. Indeed, the warrior’s 
life is a hard one, and over misfortunes like these the feeling heart 
cannot but sigh. 

But, putting out of the question the conduct and fate of the 
Captain’s associates, let us look to his own behaviour as a leader. 
It is impossible not to admire his serenity, his dexterity, that dash- 
ing impetuosity in the moment of action, and that aquiline coup 
d^oeil which belong to but few generals. He it is who leads the 
assault, smashing in the window with a sledge ; he bursts open the 
Colonel’s door, who says (naturally enough), “ Odds-wounds ! who’s 
there ? ” “A friend, sir,” says Freeny. “ You lie ! by G — d, you 
are no friend of mine ! ” roars the military blasphemer. “ I then 
said that I was, and his relation also, and that if he viewed me 
close he would know me, and begged of him not to be angry : u2)on 
which I immediately seized a brace of pistols which I observed 
hanging up in his room.” That is something like presence of mind ; 
none of your brutal braggadocio work, but neat, wary — nay, sportive 
bearing in the face of danger. And again, on the second visit to the 
Colonel’s room, when the latter bids him “go out for a villain, and 
not breed a disturbance,” what reply makes Freeny 1 the 

same time I snatched his breeches from under his head.” A common 
man would never have thought of looking for them in such a place 
at all. The difficulty about the key he resolves in quite an 
Alexandrian manner ; and, from the specimen we already have had 
of the Colonel’s style of speaking, we may fancy how ferociously he 
lay in bed and swore, after Captain Freeny and his friends had 
disappeared with the ninety guineas, the moidores, the four-pound 
piece, and the glove with twenty-eight guineas in silver. 

As for the plate, he hid it in a wood ; and then, being out of 
danger, he sat down and paid everybody his deserts. By the way, 
what a strange difference of opinion is there about a man’s deserts ! 
Here sits Captain Freeny with a company of gentlemen, and awards 
them a handsome sum of money for an action which other people 
would have remunerated with a halter. Which are right ? perhaps 
both : but at any rate it will be admitted that the Captain takes 
the humane view of the question. 

The greatest enemy Captain Freeny had was Counsellor Robbins, 
a son of his old patron, and one of the most determined thief- 


THE COUNSELLOR’S STRATAGEM 


411 


pursuers the country ever knew. But though he was untiring in 
his efforts to capture (and of course to hang) Mr. Freeny, and 
though the latter was strongly urged by his friends to blow the 
Counsellor’s brains out : yet, to his immortal honour be it said, he 
refused that temptation, agreeable as it was, declaring that he had 
eaten too much of that family’s bread ever to take the life of one of 
them, and being besides quite aware that the Counsellor was only 
acting against him in a public capacity. He respected him, in fact, 
like an honourable though terrible adversary. 

How deep a stratagem-inventor the Counsellor was, may be 
gathered from the following narration of one of his plans : — 

“ Counsellor Robbins finding his brother had not got intelligence 
that was sufficient to carry any reasonable foundation for apprehend- 
ing us, walked out as if merely for exercise, till he met with a 
person whom he thought he could confide in, and desired the person 
to meet him at a private place appointed for that purpose, which 
they did ; and he told that person he had a very good opinion of 
him, from the character received from his father of him, and from 
his own knowledge of him, and hoped that the person would then 
show him that such opinion was not ill founded. The person assur- 
ing the Counsellor he would do all in his power to serve and oblige 
him, the Counsellor told him how greatly he was concerned to hear 
the scandalous character that part of the country (which had 
formerly been an honest one) had lately fallen into ; that it was 
said that a gang of robbers who disturbed the country lived there- 
abouts. The person told him he was afraid what he said was too 
true ; and, on being asked whom he suspected, he named the same 
four persons Mr. Robbins had, but said he dare not, for fear of 
being murdered, be too inquisitive, and therefore could not say 
anything material. The Counsellor asked him if he knew where 
there was any private ale to be sold ; and he said Moll Burke, who 
lived near the end of Mr. Robbins’s avenue, had a barrel or half a 
barrel. The Counsellor then gave the person a moidore, and desired 
him to go to Thomastown and buy two or three gallons of whisky, 
and bring it to Moll Burke’s, and invite as many as he suspected to 
be either principals or accessories to take a drink, and make them 
drink very heartily, and when he found they were fuddled, and not 
sooner, to tell some of the hastiest that some other had said some bad 
things of them, so as to provoke tliem to abuse and quarrel with 
each other; and then, probably, in their liquor and passion, they 
might make some discoveries of each other, as may enable the Coun- 
sellor to get some one of the gang to discover and accuse the rest. 

“The person accordingly got the whisky and invited a good 


412 


THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK 


many to drink ; but the Counsellor being then at his brother’s, a 
few only went to Moll Burke’s, the rest being afraid to venture 
while the Counsellor was in the neighbourhood : among those who 
met there was one Moll Brophy, the wife of Mr. Rol)bins’s smith, 
and one Edmund or Edward Stapleton, otherwise Gaul, who lived 
thereabouts ; and when they had drunk plentifully, the Counsellor’s 
spy told Moll Brophy that Gaul had said she had gone astray with 
some persons or other : she then abused Gaul, and told him he was 
one of Freeny’s accomplices, for that he, Gaul, had told her he had 
seen Colonel Palliser’s watch with Freeny, and that Freeny had 
told him, Gaul, that John Welsh and the two Graces had been 
with him at tlie robbery. 

“ The company on their quarrel broke up, and the next morn- 
ing the spy met the Counsellor at the place apjjointed, at a distance 
from Mr. Robbins’s house, to prevent suspicion, and there told the 
Counsellor what intelligence he had got. The Counsellor not 
being then a justice of the peace, got his brother to send for Moll 
Brophy to be examined; but when slie came, she refused to be 
sworn or to give any evidence, and thereupon the Counsellor had 
her tied and put on a car in order to be carried to gaol on a mit- 
timus from Mr. Robbins’s, for refusing to give evidence on behalf of 
the Crown. When she found she would really be sent to gaol, she 
submitted to be sworn, and the Counsellor drew from her what she 
had said the night before, and something further, and desired her 
not to tell anybody what she had sworn.” 

But if the Counsellor was acute, were there not others as 
clever as he? For when, in consequence of the information of 
]\Irs. Brophy, some gentlemen who had been engaged in the bur- 
glarious enterprises in wliich Mr. Freeny obtained so much honour 
were seized and tried, Freeny came forward with the best of argu- 
ments in their favour. Indeed, it is fine to see these two great 
spirits matched one against the other, — the Counsellor, with all the 
regular force of the country to back him ; the Highway General, 
with but the wild resources of his gallant genius, and witli cunning 
and bravery for his chief allies. 

“ I lay by for a considerable time after, and concluded within 
myself to do no more mischief till after the assizes, when I would 
hear how it went with the men who were then in confinement. 
Some time before the assizes Counsellor Robbins came to Bally- 
duff, and told his brother that he believed Anderson and Welsh 
were guilty, and also said he would endeavour to have them both 
lianged : of which I was informed. 


THE COUNSELLOR IS DEFEATED 


413 


“ Soon after, I went to the house of one George Roberts,- who 
asked me if I had any regard for those fellows who were then con- 
fined (meaning Anderson and Welsh). I told him I had a regard 
for one of them : upon which he said he had a friend who was a 
man of power and interest — that he would save either of them, pro- 
vided I would give him five guineas. I told him I would give him 
ten, and the first gold watch I could get ; whereupon he said that 
it was of no use to speak to his friend without the money or value, 
for that he was a mercenary man : on which I told Roberts I had 
not so much money at that time, but that I would give him my 
watch as a pledge to give his friend. I then gave him my watch, 
and desired him to engage that I would pay the money which I pro- 
mised to pay, or give value for it in plate, in two or three nights 
after ; upon which, he engaged that his friend would act the need- 
ful. Then we appointed a night to meet, and we accordingly met ; 
and Roberts told me that his friend agreed to save Anderson and 
Welsh from the gallows ; whereupon I gave him a plate tankard, 
value £10, a large ladle, value £4, with some table-spoons. The 
assizes of Kilkenny, in spring 1748, coming on soon after. Coun- 
sellor Robbins had John transmitted from Naas to Kilkenny, in 
order to give evidence against Anderson and Welsh ; and tliey were 
tried for Mrs. Mounford’s robbery, on the evidence of John Welsh 
and others. The physic working well, six of the jury were for 
finding them guilty, and six more for acquitting them ; and the 
other six finding them peremptory, and that they were resolved 
to starve the others into compliance, as they say they may do by 
law, were for their own sakes obliged to comply with them, and 
they were acquitted. On which Counsellor Robbins began to 
smoke the aftair, and suspect the operation of gold dust, which was 
well applied for my comrades, and thereupon left the court in a 
rage, and swore he would for ever quit the country, since he found 
people were not satisfied with protecting and saving the rogues 
they had under themselves, but must also show that they could and 
would oblige others to have rogues under them whether they would 
or no.” 

Here Counsellor Rob s certainly loses that greatness which has 
distinguished him in his former attack on Freeny ; the Counsellor is 
defeated and loses his temper. Like Napoleon, he is unequal to 
reverses : in adverse fortune his presence of mind deserts him. 

But what call had lie to be in a passion at all ? It may be very 
well for a man to be in a rage because he is disappointed of his prey : 
so is the hawk, when tlie dove escapes, in a rage ; but let us reflect 
that, had Counsellor Robbins had his will, two honest fellows would 


414 


THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK 


have been hanged ; and so let us be heartily thankful that he was 
disappointed, and that these men were acquitted by a jury of their 
countrymen. What right had the Counsellor, forsooth, to interfere 
with their verdict 1 Not against Irish juries at least does the old 
satire apply, “And culprits hang that jurymen may dine.” At 
Kilkenny, on the contrary, the jurymen starve in order that the 
culprits might be saved — a noble and humane act of self-denial. 

In another case, stern justice, and the law of self-preservation, 
compelled Mr. Freeny to take a very different course with respect 
to one of his ex-associates. In the former instance we have seen 
him pawning his watch, giving up tankard, tablespoons — all, for his 
suffering friends ; here w^e have his method of dealing with traitors. 

One of his friends, by the name of Dooling, was taken prisoner, 
and condemned to be hanged, which gave Mr. Freeny, he says, “ a 
great shock ” ; but presently this Dooling’s fears were worked upon 
by some traitors within the gaol, and — 

“ He then consented to discover ; but I had a friend in gaol at 
the same time, one Patrick Healy, who daily insinuated to him that 
it was of no use or advantage to him to discover anything, as he had 
received sentence of death ; and that, after he had made a discovery, 
they would leave him as he was, without troubling themselves 
about a reprieve. But notwithstanding, he told the gentlemen that 
there was a man dlmd of an eye ivho had a hay mare, that lived at 
the other side of Tliomastown bridge, whom he assured them would 
be very troublesome in that neighbourhood after his death. AVhen 
Healy discovered what he told the gentlemen, he one night took an 
opportunity and made Dooling fuddled, and prevailed upon him to 
take his oath he never would give the least hint about me any more. 
He also told him the penalty that attended infringing upon his oath 
— but more especially as he was at that time near liis end — which 
had the desired effect ; for he never mentioned my name, nor even 
anything relative to me,” and so went out of the world repenting of 
his meditated treason. 

What further exploits Mr. Freeny performed may be learned by 
the curious in his history : they are all, it need scarcely be said, of 
a similar nature to that noble action which has already been described. 
His escapes from his enemies were marvellous ; his courage in facing 
them equally great. He is attacked by whole armies,” through 
which he makes his way ; wounded, he lies in the woods for days 
together with three bullets in his leg, and in this condition manages 
to escape several “armies” that have been marched against him. 
He is supposed to be dead, or travelling on the Continent, and 


FREENY’S LAST EXPLOITS 


415 


suddenly makes his appearance in his old haunts, advertising his 
arrival by robbing ten men on the highway in a single day. And 
so terrible is his courage, or so popular his manners, that he describes 
scores of labourers looking on while his -exploits were performed, 
and not affording the least aid to the roadside traveller whom he 
vanquished. 

But numbers always prevail in the end ; what could Leonidas 
himself do against an army 1 The gallant band of brothers led by 
Freeny were so pursued by the indefatigable Robbins and his myrmi- 
dons, that there w’as no hope left for them, and the Captain saw 
that lie must succumb. 

He reasoned, however, with himself (with his usual keen logic), 
and said : — 

“ My men must fall, — the world is too strong for us, and to-day, 
or to-morrow — it matters scarcely when — they must yield. They 
will be hanged for a certainty, and thus will disappear the noblest 
company of knights the world has ever seen. 

“ But as they will certainly be hanged, and no power of mine 
can save them, is it necessary that I should follow too to the tree '? 
and will James Bulger’s fate be a whit more agreeable to him, 
because James Freeny dangles at his side? To suppose so, would 
be to admit that he was actuated by a savage feeling of revenge, 
which I know belongs not to his generous nature.” 

In a word, Mr. Freeny resolved to turn King’s evidence ; for 
though he swore (in a communication with the implacable Robbins) 
that he would rather die than betray Bulger, yet when the Counsellor 
stated that he must then die, Freeny says, “ I promised to submit, 
and understood that Bidger shotdd he set^ 

Accordingly some days afterwards (although the Captain care- 
fully avoids mentioning that he had met his friend with any such 
intentions as those indicated in the last paragraph) he and Mr. 
Bulger came together : and, strangely enough, it was agreed that the 
one was to sleep while the other kept watch ; and, while thus 
employed, the enemy came upon them. But let Freeny describe for 
himself the last passages of his history : — 

We then went to Welsh’s house, with a view not to make any 
delay there; but, taking a glass • extraordinary after supper, Bulger 
fell asleep. Welsh, in the meantime, told me his house was the 
safest place I could get in that neighbourhood, and while I remained 
there I would be very safe, provided that no person knew of my 
coming there (I had not acquainted him that Breen knew of my 


416 


THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK 


coming that way). I told AVelsh that, as Bulger was asleep, I would 
not go to bed till morning : upon which Welsh and I stayed up all 
night, and in the morning Welsh said that he and his wife had a 
call to Callen, it being market-day. About nine o’clock I went and 
awoke Bulger, desiring him to get up and guard me whilst I slept, 
as I guarded him all niglit ; he said he wmuld, and tlien I went to 
bed charging him to watch close, for fear we should be surprised. 
I put my blunderbuss and two cases of pistols under my head, and 
soon fell fast asleep. In two hours after the servant-girl of the 
house, seeing an enemy coming into the yard, ran up to the room 
where we were, and said that there were an hundred men coming 
into the yard; upon which Bulger immediately awoke me, and, 
taking up my blunderbuss, he fired a shot towards the door, which 
wounded Mr. Burgess, one of the sheriffs of Kilkenny, of which 
wound he died. They concluded to set the house on fire about us, 
which they accordingly did ; upon which I took my fusee in one 
hand, and a pistol in the other, and Bulger did the like, and as we 
came out of the door, we fired on both sides, imagining it to be the 
best method of dispersing the enemy, who were on both sides of the 
door. We got through them, but they fired after us, and as Bulger 
was leaping over a ditch he received a shot in the small of the leg, 
which rendered him incapable of running ; but, getting into a field, 
where I had the ditch between me and the enemy, I still walked 
slowly with Bulger, till I thought the enemy were within shot of the 
ditch, and then wheeled back to the ditch and presented my fusee 
at them. They all drew back and went for their horses to ride 
round, as the field was wide and open, and without cover except 
the ditch. When I discovered their intention I stood in the middle 
of the field, and one of the gentlemen’s servants (there w^ere fourteen 
in number) rode foremost towards me ; upon which I told the son 
of a coward I believed he had no more than five pounds a year from 
his master, and that I would put him in such a condition that his 
master would not maintain him afterwards. To which he answered 
that he had no view of doing us any harm, but that he was com- 
manded by his master to ride so near us ; and then immediately rode 
back to the enemy, who were coming towards him. They rode 
almost within shot of us, and I observed they intended to surround 
us in the field, and prevent me from having any recourse to the ditch 
again. Bulger was at this time so bad with the wound, that he 
could not go one step without leaning on my shoulder. At length, 
seeing the enemy coming within shot of me, I laid down my fusee 
and stripped off my coat and waistcoat, and running towards them, 
cried out, ‘You sons of cowards, come on, and I will blow your 
brains out ! ’ On which they returned back, and then I walked 


FREENY’S LAST EXPLOITS 


417 


easy to the place where I left my clothes, and put them on, and 
Bulger and I walked leisurely some distance further. The enemy 
came a second time, and I occasioned them to draw back as before, 
and then we walked to Lord Dysart’s deer-park wall. I got up the 
wall and helped Bulger up. The enemy, who still pursued us, 
though not within shot, seeing us on the wall, one of them fired a 
random shot at us to no purpose. We got safe over the wall, and 
went from thence into my Lord Dysart’s wood, where Bulger said 
he would remain, thinking it a safe place ; but I told him he would 
be safer anywhere else, for the army of Kilkenny and Callen would 
be soon about the wood, and that he would be taken if he stayed 
there. Besides, as I was very averse to betraying him at all, I could 
not bear the thoughts of his being taken in my company by any 
party but Lord Garrick’s. I then brought him about half a mile 
beyond the wood, and left him there in a brake of briars, and looking 
towards the wood I saw it surrounded by the army. There was a 
cabin near that place where I fixed Bulger : he said he would go to 
it at night, and he would send for some of Ids friends to take care 
of him. It was then almost two o’clock, and we were four hours 
going to that place, which was about two miles from Welsh’s house. 
Imagining that there were spies fixed on all the fords and by-roads 
between that place and the mountain, I went towards the bounds 
of the county Tipperary, where I arrived about nightfall, and going 
to a cabin, I asked whether there was any drink sold near that 
place? The man of the house said there was not; and as I was 
very much fatigued, I sat down, and there refreshed myself wdth 
what the cabin afforded. I then begged of the man to sell me a 
pair of his brogues and stockings, as I was tlien barefooted, which 
he accordingly did. I quitted the house, went through Kinsheenah 
and Poulacoppal, and having so many thorns in my feet, I was 
obliged to go barefooted, and went to Sleedelagh, and through the 
mountains, till I came within four miles of Waterford, and going 
into a cabin, the man of the house took eighteen thorns out of the 
soles of my feet, and I remained in and about that place for some 
time after. 

“ In the meantime a friend of mine was told that it was impos- 
sible for me to escape death, for Bulger liad turned against me, and 
that his friends and Stack were resolved upon my life ; but the 
person who told my friend so, also said, that if my friend would set 
Bulger and Breen, I might get a pardon through the Earl of 
Garrick’s means and Gounsellor Robbins’s interest. My friend said 
tliat he was sure I would not consent to such a thing, hut the best 
way was to do it unknown to me; and my friend accordingly 
set Bulger, who was taken by the Earl of Garrick and his party, 
5 2d 


418 


THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK 


and Mr. Fitzgerald, and six of Counsellor Robbins’s soldiers, and 
committed to Kilkenny gaol. He was three days in gaol before I 
heard he was taken, being at that time twenty miles distant from 
the neighbourhood ; nor did I hear from him or see him since 
I left him near Lord Dysart’s wood, till a friend came and told 
me it was to preserve my life and to fulfil my articles that Bulger 
was taken ” 

“ Finding I was suspected, I withdrew to a neighbouring wood 
and concealed myself there till night, and then went to Ballyduff to 
Mr. Fitzgerald and surrendered myself to him, till I could write to 
my Lord Carrick; which I did immediately, and gave him an 
account of what I escaped, or that I would have gone to Ballylynch 
and surrendered myself there to him, and begged liis Lordship to 
send a guard for me to conduct me to his house — which he did, 
and I remained there for a few days. 

“ He then sent me to Kilkenny gaol ; and at the summer assizes 
following, James Bulger, Patrick Hacket otherwise Bristeen, Martin 
Millea, John Stack, Felix Donelly, Edmund Kenny, and James 
Larrasy were tried, convicted, and executed; and at spring assizes 
following, George Roberts was tried for receiving Colonel Palliser’s 
gold watch knowing it to be stolen, but was acquitted on account of 
exceptions taken to my pardon, which prevented my giving evi- 
dence. At the following assizes, when I had got a new pardon, 
Roberts was again tried for receiving the tankard, ladle, and silver 
spoons from me knowing them to be stolen, and was convicted and 
executed. At the same assizes, John Reddy, my instructor, and 
Martin Millea were also tried, convicted, and executed.” 

And so they were all hanged ; James Bulger, Patrick Hacket 
or Bristeen, Martin Millea, John Stack and Felix Donelly, and 
Edmund Kenny and James Larrasy, with Roberts, who received 
the Colonel’s watch, the tankard, ladle, and the silvers poons, were 
all convicted and executed. Their names drop naturally into 
blank verse. It is hard upon poor George Roberts too ; for the 
watch he received was no doubt in the very inexpressibles which 
the Captain himself took from the Colonel’s head. 

As for the Captain himself, he says that, on going out of gaol. 
Counsellor Robbins and Lord Carrick proposed a subscription for 
him — in which, strangely, the gentlemen of the county would not 
join, and so that scheme came to nothing ; and so he published his 
memoirs in order to get himself a little money. Many a man has 
taken up the pen under similar circumstances of necessity. 

But what became of Captain Freeny afterwards does not 


ALL HANGED! 


419 


appear. Was he an honest man ever after ^ Was he hanged for 
subsequent misdemeanours ? It matters little to him now ; though, 
perhaps, one cannot help feeling a little wish that the latter fate 
may have befallen him. 

Whatever his death was, however, the history of his life has 
been one of the most popular books ever known in this country. It 
formed the class-book in those rustic universities which are now 
rapidly disappearing from among the hedges of Ireland. And lest 
any English reader should, on account of its lowness, quarrel with 
the introduction here of this strange picture of wild courage and 
daring, let him be reconciled by the moral at the end, which, in 
the persons of Bulger and the rest, hangs at the beam before 
Kilkenny gaol. 


CHAPTER XVI 


MORE R.-ilN IX GALIFAY—A WALK THERE— AND THE SECOND 
GALWAY NIGHTS ENTERTAINMENT 

“ Seven hills has Rome, seven mouths has Nilus’ stream, 

Around the Pole seven burning planets gleam. 

Twice equal these is Galway, Connaught’s Rome : 

Twice seven illustrious tribes here find their home.* 

Twice seven fair towers the city’s ramparts guard : 

Each house within is built of marble hard. 

With lofty turret flanked, twice seven the gates, 

Through twice seven bridges water permeates. 

In the high church are twice seven altars raised, 

At each a holy saint and patron’s praised. 

Twice seven the convents dedicate to Heaven, — 

Seven for the female sex — for godly fathers seven.” f 

H aving read in Hardiman’s History the quaint inscription 
11 Irish Latin, of which the above lines are a version, and 
looked admiringly at the old plans of Galway which are to 
be found in the same work, I was in hopes to have seen in the 
town some considerable remains of its former splendour, in spite 

* By the help of an Alexandrine, the names of these famous families may 
also be accommodated to verse. 

“ Athey, Blake, Bodkin, Browne, Deane, Dorsey, Frinche, 

Joyce, Moreeh, Skereth, Fonte, Kirowan, Martin, Lynche. ” 

f If the rude old verses are not very remarkable in quality, in quantitt/ they 
are still more deficient, and take some dire liberties with the laws laid down in 
the Gradus and the Grammar ; — 

“ Septem ornant montes Romam, septem ostia Nilum, 

Tot rutilis stellis splendet in axe Polus. 

Galvia, Polo Niloque bis ajquas. Roma Conachtse, 

Bis septem illustres has colit ilia tribus. 

Bis urbis septem defendunt moenia turres, 

Intus et en duro est marmore quseque domus. 

Bis septem portae sunt, castra et culmina circum. 

Per totidem pontum permeat unda vias. 

Principe bis septem fulgent altaria templo, 

Quaevis patronae est ara dicata suo, 

Et septem sacrata Deo coenobia, patrum 
Foeminei et sexus, tot pia tecta tenet.” 


THE MAYOR OF GALWAY 


421 


of a warning to the contrary which the learned historiographer 
gives. 

The old city certainly has some relics of its former stateliness ; 
and, indeed, is the only town in Ireland I have seen, where an 
antiquary can find much subject for study, or a lover of the pictu- 
resque an occasion for using his pencil. It is a wild, fierce, and most 
original old town. Joyce’s Castle in one of the principal streets, a 
huge square grey tower, with many carvings and ornaments, is a 
gallant relic of its old days of prosperity, and gives one an awful idea 
of the tenements which the other families inhabited, and which are de- 
signed in the interesting plate which Mr. Hardiman gives in his work. 
The Collegiate Church, too, is still extant, without its fourteen altars, 
and looks to be something between a church and a castle, and as if it 
should be served by Templars with sword and helmet in place of mitre 
and crosier. The old houses in the Main Street are like fortresses : 
the windows look into a court within ; there is but a small low 
door, and a few grim windows peering suspiciously into the street. 

Then there is Lombard Street, otherwise called Headman’s Lane, 
with a raw-head and cross-bones and a “ memento mori ” over the 
door where the dreadful tragedy of the Lynches was acted in 1493. 
If Galway is the Rome of Connaught, James Lynch Fitzstephen, the 
Mayor, may be considered as the Lucius Jimius Brutus thereof. Lynch 
had a son who went to Spain as master of one of his father’s ships, 
and being of an extravagant wild turn, there contracted debts, and drew 
bills, and alarmed his father’s correspondent, who sent a clerk and 
nephew of his own back in young Lynch’s ship to Galway to settle 
accounts. On the fifteenth day, young Lynch threw the Spaniard over- 
board. Coming back to his own country, he reformed his life a little, 
and was on the point of marrying one of the Blakes, Burkes, Bodkins, 
or others, when a seaman who had sailed with him, being on the point 
of death, confessed the murder in which he had been a participator. 

Hereon the father, who was chief magistrate of the town, tried his 
son, and sentenced him to death ; and when the clan Lynch rose in a 
body to rescue the yoimg man, and avert such a disgrace from their 
family, it is said that Fitzstephen Lynch hanged the culprit with his 
own hand. A tragedy called “ The Warden of Galway ’* has been 
written on the subject, and was acted a few nights before my arrival. 

The waters of Lough Corrib, wliich “ permeate ” under the 
bridges of the town, go rushing and roaring to the sea with a noise 
and eagerness only known in Galway ; and along the banks you see 
all sorts of strange figures washing all sorts of wonderful rags, with 
red petticoats and redder shanks standing in the stream. Pigs are 
in every street : the whole town shrieks with them. There are 
numbers of idlers on the bridges, thousands in the streets, humming 


422 


THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK 


and swarming in and out of dark old ruinous houses ; congregated 
round numberless apple-stalls, nail-stalls, bottle-stalls, pigsfoot-stalls ; 
in queer old shops, that look to be two centuries old ; loitering about 
warehouses, ruined or not ; looking at the washerwomen washing in 
the river, or at the fish-donkeys, or at the potato-stalls, or at a 
vessel coming into the quay, or at the boats putting out to sea. 

That boat at the quay, by the little old gate, is bound for Arran- 
more ; and one next to it has a freight of passengers for the cliffs of 
Mohir on the Clare coast ; and as the sketch is taken, a hundred of 
])eople have stopped in the street to look on, and are buzzing behind 
in Irish, telling the little boys in that language — who will persist in 
placing themselves exactly in front of the designer — to get out of his 



way ; which they do for some time ; but at length curiosity is so 
intense that you are entirely hemmed in and the view rendered quite 
invisible. A sailor’s wife comes up — who speaks English — with a 
very wistful face, and begins to hint that them black pictures are 
very bad likenesses, and very dear too for a poor woman, and how much 
would a painted one cost does his honour think 1 And she has her 
husband that is going to sea to the West Indies to-morrow, and 
she’d give anything to have a picture of him. So I made bold to 
offer to take his likeness for nothing. But he never came, except 
one day at dinner, and not at all on the next day, though I stayed 
on purpose to accommodate him. It is true that it was pouring with 
rain ; and as English waterproof coats are not waterproof in Ireland, 


GALWAY 


423 


the traveller who has hut one coat must of necessity respect it, and 
had better stay where he is, unless he prefers to go to bed while he 
has his clothes dried at the next stage. , 

The houses in the fashionable street where the club-house stands 
(a strong building, with an agreeable Old Bailey look) have the ap- 
pearance of so many little Newgates. The Catholic chapels are 
numerous, unfinished, and ugly. Great warehouses and mills rise 
up by the stream, or in the midst of unfinished streets here and 
there ; and handsome convents with their gardens, justice-houses, 
barracks, and hospitals adorn the large, poor, bustling, rough-and- 
ready-looking town. A man who sells hunting-whips, gunpowder, 
guns, fishing-tackle, and brass and iron ware, has a few books on 
his counter ; and a lady in a by-street, who carries on the profession 
of a milliner, ekes out her stock in a similar way. But there were 
no regular book-shops that I saw, and when it came on to rain I 
had no resource but the hedge-school volumes again. They, like 
Patrick Spelman’s sign (which was faithfully copied in the town)^ 



present some very rude flowers of poetry and “entertainment” of 
an exceedingly humble sort ; but such shelter is not to be despised 
when no better is to be had; nay, possibly its novelty may be 
piquant to some readers, as an admirer of Shakespeare will occa- 
sionally condescend to listen to Mr. Punch, or an epicure to content 
himself with a homely dish of beans and bacon. 

When Mr. Kilroy’s waiter has drawn the window-curtains, 
brought the hot-water for the whisky-negus, a pipe and a “screw” 
of tobacco, and two huge old candlesticks that were plated once, 
the audience may be said to be assembled, and after a little over- 
ture performed on the pipe, the second night’s entertainment begins 
with the historical tragedy of the “ Battle of Aughrim.” 

Though it has found its way to the West of Ireland, the “ Battle 
of Aughrim ” is evidently by a Protestant author, a great enemy of 
Popery and wooden shoes : both of which principles incarnate in 


424 . 


THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK 


the person of St. Riitli, tlie French General commanding tlie troops 
sent by Louis XIV. to the aid of James II., meet with a woeful 
downfall at tlie conclusion of the piece. It must liave been written 
in the reign of Queen Anne, judging from some loyal compliments 
which are paid to that sovereign in the play; which is also 
modelled upon “ Cato.” 

The “ Battle of Aughrim ” is written from beginning to end in 
decasyllabic verse of the richest sort; and introduces us to the 
chiefs of William’s and James’s armies. On the English side we 
have Baron Ginkell, three Generals, ami two Colonels ; on the 
Irish, Monsieur St. Ruth, two Generals, two Colonels, and an 
English gentleman of fortune, a volunteer, and son of no less a 
person than Sir Edmundbury Godfrey. 

There are two ladies — Jemima, the Irish Colonel Talbot’s 
daughter, in love with Godfrey ; and Lucinda, lady of Colonel 
Herbert, in love with her lord. And the deep nature of the 
tragedy may be imagined when it is stated that Colonel Talbot is 
killed. Colonel Herbert is killed. Sir Charles Godfrey is killed, and 
Jemima commits suicide, as resolved not to survive her adorer. 
St. Ruth is also killed, and the remaining Irish heroes are taken 
prisoners or run away. Among the supernumeraries there is 
likewise a dreadful slaughter. 

The author,, however, though a Protestant, is an Irishman (there 
are peculiarities in his pronunciation which belong only to that 
nation), and as far as courage goes, lie allows the two parties to be 
pretty equal. The scene opens with a martial sound of kettle-drums 
and trumpets in the Irish camp, near Athlone. That town is 
besieged by Ginkell, and Monsieur St. Ruth (despising his enemy 
with a confidence often fatal to Generals) meditates an attack on 
the besiegers’ lines, if, by any chance, the besieged garrison be not 
in a condition to drive them off. After discoursing on the posture 
of affairs, and letting General Sarsfield and Colonel O’Neil know his 
hearty contempt of the English and their General, all parties, after 
protestations of patriotism, indulge in hopes of the downfall of 
William. St. Ruth says he will drive the wolves’ and lions’ cubs 
away. O’Neil declares he scorns the Revolution, and, like great 
Cato, smiles at persecution. Sarsfield longs for the day “ when our 
Monks and Jesuits shall return, and holy incense on our altars 
burn.” When 

Enter a Post. 

Post. With important news I from Athlone am sent, 

Be pleased to lead me to the General’s tent. 

Sars. Behold the General there. Your mess ige tell. 

St. Ruth. Declare your message. Are our friends all well ? 


IN AN ARM-CHAIR 


425 


Post. Pardon me, sir, the fatal news I bring 
Like vulture’s poison every heart shall sting. 

Athlone is lost without your timely aid. 

At six this morning an assault was made, 

When, under shelter of the British cannon, 

Their grenadiers in armour took the Shannon, 

Led by brave Captain Sandys, who with fame 
Plunged to his middle in the rapid stream. 

He led them through, and with undaunted ire 
He gained the bank in spite of all our fire ; 

Being bravely followed by his grenadiers 
Though bullets flew like hail about their ears. 

And by this time they enter uncontrolled. 

St. Ruth. Dare all the force of England be so bold 
T’ attempt to storm so brave a town, when I 
With all Hibernia’s sons of war am nigh ? 

Return : and if the Britons dare pursue, 

Tell them St. Ruth is near, and that will do. 

Post. Your aid would do much better than your name. 

St. Ruth. Bear back this answer, friend, from whence you came. 

[Exit Post.” 

The picture of brave Sandys, “who with fame plunged to his 
middle in the rapid straine,” is not a bad image on the part of the 
Post ; and St. Ruth’s reply, “ Tell them St. Ruth is near, and that 
will do,” characteristic of the vanity of his nation. But Sarsfield 
knows Britons better, and pays a merited compliment to their 
valour : 

Sars. Send speedy succours and their fate prevent, 

You know not yet what Britons dare attempt. 

I know the English fortitude is such. 

To boast of nothing, though they hazard much. 

No force on earth their fury can repel, 

Nor would they fly from all the devils in hell.” 


Another officer arrives : Athlone is really taken, St. Ruth gives 
orders to retreat to Aughrim, and Sarsfield, in a rage, first challenges 
him, and then vows he will quit the army. “ A gleam of horror 
does my vitals damp,” says the Frenchman (in a figure of speech 
more remarkable for vigour than logic): “I fear Lord Lucan has 
forsook the camp ! ” But not so : after a momentary indignation, 
Sarsfield returns to his duty, and ere long is reconciled with his 
vain and vacillating chief. 

And now the love-intrigue begins. Godfrey enters, and states 
Sir Charles Godfrey is his lawful name ; he is an Englishman, and 
was on his way to join Ginkell’s camp, when Jemima’s beauty over- 
came him : he asks Colonel Talbot to bestow on him the lady’s 


426 


THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK 


hand. The Colonel consents, and in Act II., on the plain of 
Anghrim, at five o’clock in the morning, Jemima enters and pro- 
claims her love. The lovers have an interview, which concludes by 
a mutual confession of attachment, and Jemima says, “ Here, take 
my hand. ’Tis true the gift is small, but when I can I’ll give you 
heart and all.” The lines show finely the agitation of the young 
person. She meant to say. Take imj hearty but she is longing to 
be married to him, and the words slip out as it were unawares. 
Godfrey cries in raptures — 

“ Thanks to the gods ! who such a present gave ; 

Such radiant graces ne’er could man receive {resave) ; 

For who on earth has e’er such transports known ? 

What is the Turkish monarch on his throne, 

Jlemmed round with rusty swords in pompous state ? 

Amidst his Court no joys can be so great. 

Retire with me, my soul, no longer stay 
In public view ! the General moves this way.” 

’Tis, indeed, the General ; who, reconciled with Sarsfield, straight- 
way, according to his custom, begins to boast about what he will 
do : — 


“Thrice welcome to my heart, thou best of friends ! 

The rock on which our holy faith depends ! 

May this our meeting as a tempest make 
The vast foundations of Britannia shake, 

Tear up their orange plant, and overwhelm 
The strongest bulwarks of the British realm ! 

Then shall the Dutch and Hanoverian fall, 

And James shall ride in triumph to Whitehall ; 

Then to protect our faith he will maintain 
An Inquisition here like that in Spain. 

Sars. Most bravely urged, my Lord ! your skill, I own. 

Would be unparalleled — had you saved Athlone.” 

— Had you saved Athlone ! ” Sarsfield has him there. And the 
contest of words might have provoked quarrels still more fatal, but 
alarms are heard : the battle begins, and St. Ruth (still confident) 
goes to meet the enemy, exclaiming, “ Athlone was sweet, but 
Aughrim shall be sour.” The fury of the Irish is redoubled on 
hearing of Talbot’s heroic death. The Colonel’s corpse is presently 
brought in, and to it enters Jemima, who bewails her loss in the 
following pathetic terms : — 

''^Jemima, Oh ! — he is dead ! — my .soul is all on fire, 

Witness ye gods !— he did with fame expire ; 

For Liberty a sacrifice was made. 

And fell, like Pompey, by some villain's blade. 


IN AN ARM-CHAIR 


427 


There lies a breathless corse, whose soul ne’er knew 
A thought but what was always just and true ; 

Look down from heaven, God of peace and love, 

Waft him with triumph to the throne above ; 

And, 0 ye winged guardians of the skies ! 

Tune your sweet harps and sing his obsequies ! 

Good friends, stand off whilst I embrace the ground 

Whereon he lies and bathe each mortal wound 

With brinish tears, that like to torrents run 
From these sad eyes. 0 heavens ! I’m undone. 

[Falls down on the body. 

Enter Sir Charles Godfrey. He raises her. 

Sir Char. Why do these precious eyes like fountains flow, 

To droivn the radiant heaven that lies below ? 

Dry up your tears, I trust his soul ere this 
Has reached the mansions of eternal bliss. 

Soldiers ! bear hence the body out of sight. [They bear him off. 
Jem. Oh, stay — ye murderers, cease to kill me quite : 

See how he glares ! and see again he flies ! 

The clouds fly open, and he mounts the skies. 

Oh ! see his blood, it shines refulgent bright, 

I see him yet — I cannot lose him quite, V 

But still pursue him on — and — lose my sight.” ) 

The gradual disappearance of the ColoneFs soul is now finely indi- 
cated, and so is her grief : when showing the body to Sir Charles, she 
says, “ Behold the mangled cause of all my woes.” The sorrow of 
youth, however, is but transitory ; and when her lover bids her dry 
her gushish tears, she takes out her pocket-handkerchief with the 
elasticity of youth, and consoles herself for the father in the husband. 

Act III. represents the English camp : Ginkell and his Generals 
discourse ; the armies are engaged. In Act IV. the English are 
worsted in spite of their valour, which Sarsfield greatly describes. 
“ View,” says he — 

‘ ‘ View how the foe like an impetuous flood 
Breaks through the smoke, the water, and — the mud ! ” 

It becomes exceedingly hot. Colonel Earles says — 

In vain Jove’s lightnings issue from the sky. 

For death more sure from British ensigns fly. 

Their messengers of death much blood have spilled. 

And full three hundred of the Irish killed.” 

A description of war (Herbert) ; — 

“ Now bloody colours wave in all their pride, 

And each proud hero does his beast bestride.” 


428 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK 

General Dorringtori’s description of the fight is, if possible, still 
more noble : — 

“ Dor. Haste, noble friends, and save your lives by flight, 

For ’tis but madness if you stand to fight. 

Our cavalry the battle have forsook, 

And death appears in each dejected look ; 

Nothing but dread confusion can be seen, 

For severed heads and trunks o’erspread the green ; 

The fields, the vales, the hills, and vamiuished plain, 

For five miles round are covered with the slain. 

Death in each quarter does the eye alarm, 

Here lies a leg, and there a shattered arm. 

There heads appear, which, cloven by mighty bangs, 

And severed quite, on either shoulder hangs : 

This is the awful scene, my Lords ! Oh, fly 
The impending danger, for your fate is nigh ! ” 

Which party, however, is to win — the Irish or English 'I Their 
heroism is equal, and young Godfrey especially, on the Irish side, is 
carrying all before him — when he is interrupted in the slaughter by 
the ghost of his father : of old Sir Edmundbury, whose monument 
we may see in Westminster Abbey. Sir Charles, at first, doubts 
about the genuineness of this venerable old apparition ; and thus 
puts a case to the ghost : — 

“ Were ghosts in heaven, in heaven they there would stay. 

Or if in hell, they could not yet away." 

A clincher, certainly, as one would imagine : but the ghost jumps 
over the horns of the fancied dilemma, by saying that he is not at 
liberty to state where he comes from. 

“ Ghost. Where visions rest, or souls imprisoned dwell. 

By Heaven’s command, we are forbid to tell ; 

But in the obscure grave — where corpse decay, 

Moulder in dust and putrefy away, — 

No rest is there ; for the immortal soul 
Takes its full flight and flutters round the Pole ; 

Sometimes I hover over the Euxine sea — 

From Pole to Sphere, until the judgment day — 

Over the Thracian Bosphorus do I float. 

And pass the Stygian lake in Charon’s boat, 

O’er Vulcan’s fiery court and sulph’rous cave, 

And ride like Neptune on a briny wave ; 

List to the blowing noise of Etna’s flames. 

And court the shades of Amazonian dames; 

Then take my flight up to the gleamy moon : 

Thus do I wander till the day of doom. 


IN AN ARM-CHAIR 


429 


Proceed I dare not, or I would unfold 
A horrid tale would make your blood run cold, 

Chill all your nerves and sinews in a trice ‘ 

Like whispering rivulets congealed to ice. 

Sir Char. Ere you depart me, ghost, I here demand 
You’d let me know your last divine command ! ” 

Tlie ghost says that the young man must die in the battle ; that it 
will go ill for him if he die in the wrong cause ; and, therefore, that 
he had best go over to the Protestants— which poor Sir Charles 
(not without many sighs for Jemima) consents to do. He goes off 
then, saying — 

“ I’ll join my countrymen, and yet proclaim 
Nassau’s great title to the crimson plain."' 

In Act V., that desertion turns the fate of the day. Sars- 
field enters with his sword drawn, and acknowledges his fate. 
“ Aughrim,” exclaims Lord Lucan, 

“ Aughrim is now no more, St. Ruth is dead, 

And all his guards are from the battle fled. 

As he rode down the hill he met his fall, 

And died a victim to a cannon hall." 

And bids the Frenchman’s body to 

“ lie like Pompey in his gore, 

Whose hero’s blood encircles the Egyptian shore.” 

“ Four hundred Irish prisoners we have got,” exclaims an English 
General, “and seven thousand lyeth on the spot.” In fact, they 
are entirely discomfited, and retreat off’ the stage altogether ; while, 
in the moment of victory, poor Sir Charles Godfrey enters, wounded 
to death, according to the old gentleman’s prophecy. He is racked 
by bitter remorse ; he tells his love of his treachery, and declares 
“no crocodile was ever more unjust.” His agony increases, the 
“ optic nerves grow dim and lose their sight, and all his veins are 
now exhausted quite ; ” and he dies in the arms of his Jemima, 
who stabs herself in the usual way. 

And so every one being disposed of, the drums and trumpets 
give a great peal, the audience huzzas, and the curtain falls on 
Ginkell and his friends exclaiming — 

“May all the gods th’ auspicious evening bless. 

Who crowns Great Britain’s arrums with success ! ” 

And questioning the prosody, what Englishman will not join in 
the sentiment '? 

In the interlude the band (the pipe) performs a favourite air. 


430 


THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK 


Jack the waiter and candle-snuffer looks to see that all is ready ; 
and after the dire business of the tragedy, comes in to sprinkle 
the stage with water (and perhaps a little whisky in it). Thus 
all things being arranged, the audience takes its seat again and 
the afterpiece begins. 

Two of the little yellow volumes purchased at Ennis are entitled 
“ The Irish and Hibernian Tales.” The former are modern, and 
the latter of an ancient sort ; and so great is the superiority of 
the old stories over the new, in fancy, dramatic interest, and 
humour, that one can’t help fancying Hibernia must have been a 
very superior country to Ireland. 

“ These Hibernian novels, too, are evidently intended for the 
hedge-school universities. They have the old tricks and some of 
the old plots that one has read in many popular legends of almost 
all countries, European and Eastern : successful cunning is the 
great virtue applauded; a*nd the heroes pass through a thousand 
wild extravagant dangers, such as could only have been invented 
when art was young and faith was large. And as the honest old 
author of the tales says “ they are suited to the meanest as well 
as the highest capacity, tending both to improve the fancy and 
enrich the mind,” let us conclude the night’s entertainment by 
reading one or two of them, and reposing after the doleful tragedy 
which has been represented. The “Black Thief” is worthy of 
the “Arabian Nights,” I think, — as wild and odd as an Eastern 
tale. 

It begins, as usual, wdth a King and Queen who lived once 
on a time in the South of Ireland, and had three sons; but the 
Queen being on her death-bed, and fancying her husband might 
marry again, and unwilling that her children should be under the 
jurisdiction of any other woman, besought his Majesty to place 
them in a tower at her death, and keep them there safe until the 
young Princes should come of age. 

The Queen dies : the King of course marries again, and the 
new Queen, who bears a son too, hates the offspring of the former 
marriage, and looks about for means to destroy them. 

“ At length the Queen, having got some business with the hen- 
wife^ went herself to her, and after a long conference passed, was 
taking leave of her, when the hen-wife prayed that if ever she 
should come back to her again she might break her neck. The 
Queen, greatly incensed at such a daring insult from one of her 
meanest subjects, to make such a prayer on her, demanded imme- 
diately the reason, or she would have her put to death. ‘ It was 
worth your while, madam,'’ says the hen-wife, ‘ to pay me well for 


THE BLACK THIEF 


431 


it, for the reason I prayed so on yon concerns you much.’ ‘ What 
must I pay yoiil’ asked the Queen. ‘You must give me,’ says 
she, ‘ the full of a pack of wool : and I have an ancient crock whicli 
you must fill with butter ; likewise a barrel which you must fill for 
me full of wheat.’ ‘ How much wool will it take to the pack 1 ’ 
says the Queen. ‘ It will take seven herds of sheep,’ said she, ‘ and 
their increase for seven years.’ ‘ How much butter will it take to 
fill your crock 1’ ‘Seven dairies,’ said she, ‘and the increase for 
seven years.’ ‘ And how much will it take to fill the barrel you 
have ? ’ says the Queen. ‘ It will take the increase of seven barrels 
of wheat for seven years.’ ‘ That is a great quantity,’ says the 
Queen, ‘ but the reason must be extraordinary, and before I want it 
I will give you all you demand.’ ” 

The hen-wife acquaints the Queen with the existence of the 
three sons, and giving her Majesty an enchanted pack of cards, 
bids her to get the young men to play with her with these cards, 
and on their losing, to inflict upon them such a task as must infal- 
libly end in their ruin. All young princes are set upon such tasks, 
and it is a sort of opening of the pantomime, before the tricks 
and activity begin. The Queen went home, and “got speaking” 
to the King “in regard of his children, and she broke it off to 
him in a very polite and engaging manner, so that he could see no 
muster or design in it.” The King agreed to bring his sons to 
Court, and at night, when the Royal party “began to sport, and 
play at all kinds of diversions,” the Queen cunningly challenged the 
three Princes to play cards. They lose, and she sends them in 
consequence to bring her back the Knight of the Glen’s wild steed 
of bells. 

On their road (as wandering young princes, Indian or Irish, 
always do) they meet with the Black Thief of Sloan, who tells 
them what they must do. But they are caught in the attempt, and 
brought “ into that dismal part of the palace where the Knight kept 
a furnace always boiling, in which he threw all offenders that ever 
came in his way, which in a few minutes would entirely consume 
them. ‘ Audacious villains ! ’ says the Knight of the Glen, ‘ how 
dare you attempt so bold an action as to steal my steed ? See now 
the rew'ard of your folly ; for your greater punishment, I will not 
boil you all together, but one after the other, so that he that sur- 
vives may witness the dire afflictions of his unfortunate companions.’ 
So saying, he ordered his servants to stir up the fire. ‘We will 
boil the eldest-looking of these young men first,’ says he, ‘ and so 
on to the last, which will be this old chamjnon with the black cap. 
He seems to be the captain, and looks as if he had come through 


432 


THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK 


many toils.’ — ‘ I was as near death once as this Prince is yet,’ says 
the Black Thief, ‘ and escaped : and so will he too.’ ‘ No, you 
never were,’ said the Knight, ‘for he is within two or three 
minutes of his latter end.’ ‘ But,’ says the Black Thief, ‘ I was 
within one moment of my death, and I am here yet.’ ‘ How was 
tliat ? ’ says the Knight. ‘ I would be glad to hear it, for it seems 
to be impossible.’ ‘ If you think. Sir Knight,’ sa^^s the Black Thief, 
‘ that the danger I was in surj)assed that of this young man, will 
you pardon him his crime V ‘I will,’ says the Knight, ‘ so go on 
with your story.’ 

“ ‘ I Avas, sir,’ says he, ‘ a very wild boy in my youth, and came 
through many distresses : once in particular, as I was on my 
rambling, I was benighted, and could find no lodging. At length I 
came to an old kiln, and being much fatigued, I went up and lay on 
the ribs. I had not been long there, when I saw three witches 
coming in with three bags of gold. Each put her bag of gold under 
her head as if to sleep. I heard the one say to the other that if 
the Black Thief came on them while they slept he would not leave 
them a penny. I found by their discourse that everybody had got 
my name into their mouth, though I kept silent as death during 
their discourse. At length they fell fast asleep, and then I stole 
softly doAvn, and seeing some turf convenient, I pla(;ed one under 
each of their heads, and off I Avent Avith their gold as fast as I 
could. 

“ ‘ I had not gone far,’ continued the Thief of Sloan, ‘ until I 
saAV a greyhound, a hare, and a liaAAdc in pursuit of me, and began 
to think it must be the Avitches that had taken that metamorphosis, 
in order that I might not escape them unseen either by land or 
Avater. Seeing they did not appear in any formidable shape, I AA^as 
more than once resolved to attack them, thinking that Avith my 
broadsAvord I could easily destroy them. But considering again 
that it AA^as perhaps still in their poAver to become so, I gave OA^er 
the attempt, and climbed Avith difficulty up a tree, bringing my 
SAvord in my hand, and all £he gold along with me. IIoAvever, Avhen 
they came to the tree they found Avhat I had done, and, making 
further use of their hellish art, one of them AA^as changed into a 
smith’s anvil, and another into a piece of iron, of which the third 
one soon made a hatchet. Having the hatchet made, she fell to 
cutting doAvn the tree, and in course of an hour it began to shake 
AAuth me.’ ” 

This is very good and original. The “ boiling ” is in the first 
fee-faw-fum style, and the odd allusion to “ the old champion in the 
black cap” has the real Ogresque humour. Nor is that simple 


THE BLACK THIEF 


433 


contrivance of the honest witches without its charm ; for if, instead of 
wasting their time, the one in turning herself into an anvil, the other 
into a piece of iron, and so hammering out a hatchet at considerable 
labour and expense — if either of them had turned herself into a 
hatchet at once, they might have chopped down the Black Thief 
before cock-crow, when they were obliged to fly off and leave him 
in possession of the bags of gold. 

The eldest Prince is ransomed by the Knight of tlie Glen in 
consequence of this story ; and the second Prince escapes on account 
of the merit of a second story ; but the great story of all is of 
course reserved for the youngest Prince. 

“ I was one day on my travels,” says the Black Thief, “ and I 
came into a large forest, where I wandered a long time and could 
not get out of it. At length I came to a large castle, and fatigue 
obliged me to call into the same, where I found a young woman, 
and a child sitting on her knee, and she crying. I asked her what 
made her cry, and where the lord of tlie castle w^as, for I Avondered 
greatly that I saw no stir of servants or any person about the place. 

‘ It is well for you,’ says the young woman, ‘ that the lord of this 
castle is not at home at present ; for he is a monstrous giant, 
with but one eye on his forehead, who lives on human flesh. He 
brought me this child,’ says she— ‘ I do not know where he got it 
— and ordered me to make it into a pie, and^ I cannot help crying 
at the command.’ I told her that if she knew of any place con- 
venient that I could leave the child safely, I would do it, rather 
than that it sliould be buried in the boAvels of such a monster. She 
told of a house a distance off, where I would get a woman who 
would take care of it. ‘ But what will I do in regard of the pie 1 ’ 

‘ Cut a finger off it,’ said I, ‘ and I will bring you in a young wild 
pig out of the forest, which you may dress as if it was the child, 
and put the finger in a certain place, tliat if the giant doubts any- 
thing about it, you may know where to turn it oAmr at first, and 
when he sees it he will be fully satisfied that it is made of the 
child.’ She agreed to the plan I proposed ; and, cutting off the 
child’s finger, by her direction I soon liad it at the house she told 
me of, and brought her the little pig in the place of it. She then 
made ready the pie ; and, after eating and drinking heartily myself, 
I was just taking my leave of the young woman when we observed 
the giant coming through the castle-gates. ‘ Lord bless me ! ’ said 
she, ‘ what will you do now ? Run away, and lie down among the 
dead bodies that he has in the room ’ (showing me the place)^, ‘ and 
strip off your clothes that he may not know you from the rest if he 
has occasion to go that way.’ I took her advice, and laid myself 


434 


THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK 


down among the rest, as if dead, to see how lie would behave. The 
first thing I heard was him calling for liis pie. When she set it 
down before him, he swore it smelt like swine’s flesh : but, knowing 
where to find the finger, she immediately turned it up — which fairly 
convinced him of the contrary. The pie only served to sharpen his 
appetite, and I heard him sharpen his knife, and saying he must 
have a collop or two, for he was not near satisfied. But what was my 
terror when I heard the giant groping among the bodies, and, fancy- 
ing myself, cut the half of my hip off, and took it with him to be 
roasted. You may be certain I was in great pain ; but the fear of 
being killed prevented me from making any complaint. However, 
when he had eat all, he began to drink hot liquors in great abund- 
ance, so that in a short time he could not hold up his head, but 
threw himself on a large creel he had made for the purpose, and fell 
fast asleep. Whenevey' I heard him snoring, bad as I was, I went 
up and caused the woman to bind my wound with a handkerchief ; 
and taking the giant’s spit, I reddened it in the fire, and ran it 
through the eye, but was not able to kill him. However, I left 
the spit sticking in his head and took to my heels ; but I soon 
found he was in pursuit of me, although blind; and, having an 
enchanted ring, he threw it at me, and it fell on my big toe and 
remained fastened to it. The giant then called to the ring, ‘ Where 
it was 'I ’ and to my great surprise it made him answer, ‘ On my 
foot,’ and he, guided by the same, made a leap at me — which I 
had the good luck to observe, and fortunately escaped the danger. 
However, I found running was of no use in saving me as long as I 
had the ring on my foot ; so I took my sword- and cut off the toe 
it was fastened on, and threw both into a large fish-pond that was 
convenient. The giant called again to the ring, which, by the 
power of enchantment, always made answer ; but he, not knowing 
what I had done, imagined it was still on some part of me, and 
made a violent leap to seize me — when he went into the pond over 
head and ears and was drowned. Now, Sir Knight,” said the Thief 
of Sloan, “you see what dangers I came through and always escaped; 
but indeed I am lame for want of my toe ever since.” 

And now remains but one question to be answered, viz. How 
is the Black Thief himself to come off'? This difficulty is solved 
in a very dramatic way and with a sudden turn in the narrative 
that is very wild and curious. 

“ My lord and master,” says an old woman that was listening 
all the time, “ that story is but too true, as I well know : for I 
am the very woman that was in the giant’s castle, and you, my 


THE BLACK THIEF 


435 


lordy the child that I ivas to make into a pie; and this is the 
very man that saved your life, which you may know by the want 
of your finger that was taken off, as you liave heard, to deceive 
the giant.” 

That fantastical way of bearing testimony to the previous tale 
by producing an old woman who says the tale is not only true, but 
she was the very old woman who lived in the giant’s castle, is almost 
a stroke of genius. It is fine to think that the simple chronicler 
found it necessary to have a proof for his story, and he was no doubt 
perfectly contented with the proof found. 

“The Knight of the Glen, greatly surprised at what he had 
heard the old woman tell, and knowing he Avanted his finger from 
his childhood, began to understand that the story was true enough. 
‘ And is this my dear deliverer % ’ says he. ‘ 0 brave fellow, I not 
only pardon you all, but I Avill keep you with myself while you live ; 
where you shall feast like princes and have every attendance that I 
have myself.’ They all returned thanks on their knees, and the 
Black Thief told him the reason they attempted to steal the steed 
of bells, and the necessity they were under of going home. ‘Well,’ 
says the Knight of the Glen, ‘ if that’s the case, I bestow you my 
steed rather than this brave fellow should die : so you may go 
when you please : only remember to call and see me betimes, that 
we may know each other well.’ They promised they would, and 
with great joy they set off for the King their father’s palace, and 
the Black Thief along with them. The wicked Queen Avas standing 
all this time on the toAver, and hearing the bells ringing at a great 
distance off, kneAv very Avell it AA^as the Princes coming home, and 
the steed Avith them, and through spite and vexation precipitated 
herself from the toAver and w^as shattered to pieces. The three 
Princes lived happy and well during their father’s reign, ahvays 
keeping the Black Thief along Avith them ; but hoAV they did after 
the old King’s death is not knoAvn.” 

Then we come upon a story that exists in many a European 
language — of the man cheating Death : then to the history of the 
Apprentice Thief, who of course cheated his masters : Avhich, too, 
is an old tale, and may have been told very likely among those 
Phoenicians who Avere the fathers of the Hibernians, for Avhom these 
tales were devised. A very curious tale is there concerning Manus 
O’Malaghau and the Fairies : — 

“ In the parish of Ahoghill lived Manus O’Malaghan. As he was 
searching for a calf that had strayed^ he heard many people talking. 


436 


THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK 


Drawing near, he distinctly heard them repeating, one after the 
other, ‘ Get me a horse, get me a horse ; ’ and ‘ Get me a horse too,’ 
says Manus. Manus was instantly mounted on a steed, surrounded 
with a vast crowd, who galloped off, taking poor Manus with them. 
In a short time they suddenly stopped in a large wide street, asking 
Manus if he knew where he was? ‘Faith,’ says he, ‘I do not.’ 
‘ You are in Spain, ^ said they.” 

Here we have again the wild mixture of the positive and the 
fanciful. The chronicler is carefid to tell us why Manus went out 
searching for a calf, and this positiveness prodigiously increases the 
reader’s wonder at the subsequent events. And the question and 
answer of the mysterious horsemen is fine : “ Don’t you know where 
you are ? In S2min." A vague solution, such as one has of occur- 
rences in dreams sometimes. 

The history of Robin the Blacksmith is full of these strange 
flights of poetry. He is followed about “ by a little boy in a green 
jacket,” who performs the most wondrous feats of the blacksmith’s 
art, as follows : — 

“ Robin was asked to do something, who wisely shifted it, 
saying he would be very sorry not to give the honour of the first 
trick to his Lordship’s smith — at which the latter was called forth 
to the bellows. When the fire was well kindled, to the great sur- 
prise of all present, he blew a great shower of wheat out of the 
fire, which fell through all the shop. They then demanded of Robin 
to try what he could do. ‘ Pho ! ’ said Robin, as if he thought 
nothing of what was done. ‘ Come,’ said he to the boy, ‘ I think I 
showed you something like that.’ The boy goes then to the bellows 
and blew out a great flock of pigeons, who soon devoured all the 
grain and then disappeared. / 

“ The Dublin smith, sorely vexed that such a boy should outdo 
him, goes a second time to the bellows and blew a fine trout out of 
the hearth, who jumped into a little river that was running by the 
shop-door, and was seen no more at that time. 

“ Robin then said to the boy, ‘ Come, you must bring us yon 
trout back again, to let the gentlemen see we can do something.’ 
Away the boy goes and blew a large otter out of the hearth, who 
immediately leaped into the river and in a short time returned with 
the trout in his mouth, and then disappeared. All present allowed 
that it was a folly to attempt a competition any further.” 

The boy in the green jacket was one “ of a kind of small beings 
called fairies ” ; and not a little does it add to the charm of these 


DONALD O’NEARY 


437 


wild tales to feel, as one reads them, that the writer must have 
believed in his heart a great deal of what he told. You see the 
tremor as it were, and a wild look of the eyes, as the story-teller 
sits in his nook and recites, and peers wistfully round lest the beings 
he talks of be really at hand. 

Let us give a couple of the little tales entire. They are not so 
fanciful as those before mentioned, but of the comic sort, and suited 
to the first kind of capacity mentioned by the author in his preface. 


©unalli anb Ji's 

“ Hudden and Dudden and Donald O’Neary were near neighbours 
in the barony of Ballinconlig, and ploughed with three bullocks ; 
but the two former, envying the present prosperity of the latter, 
determined to kill his bullock to prevent his farm being properly 
cultivated and laboured — that, going back in the world, he might be 
induced to sell his lands, which they meant to get possession of. 
Poor Donald, finding his bullock killed, immediately skinned it, and 
throwing the skin over his shoulder, with the fleshy side out, set off 
to the next town with it, to dispose of it to the best advantage. 
Going along the road a magpie flew on the top of the hide, and 
began picking it, chattering all the time. This bird had been 
taught to speak and imitate the human voice, and Donald, thinking 
he understood some words it was saying, put round his hand and 
caught hold of it. Having got possession of it, he put it under his 
greatcoat, and so went on to the town. ' Having sold the hide, he 
went into an inn to take a dram ; and, following the landlady into 
the cellar, he gave the bird a squeeze, which caused it to chatter 
some broken accents that surprised her very much. ‘ What is that 
I hear 'I ’ said she to Donald : ‘ I think it is talk, and yet I do not 
understand.’ ‘Indeed,’ said Donald, ‘it is a bird I have that 
tells me everything, and I always carry it with me to know when 
there is any danger. Faith,’ says he, ‘ it says you have far better 
liquor than you are giving me.’ ‘ That is strange,’ said she, going 
to another cask of better quality, and asking him if he would sell 
the bird. ‘ I will,’ said Donald, ‘ if I get enough for it.’ ‘ I 
will fill your hat wdth silver if you will leave it with me.’ Donald 
was glad to hear the news, and, taking the silver, set off, rejoicing 
at his good luck. He had not been long home when he met with 
Hudden and Dudden. ‘ Ha ! ’ said he, ‘ you thought you did me 
a bad turn, but you could not have done me a better : for look here 
what I have got for the hide,’ showing them the hatful of silver. 
‘You never saw such a demand for hides in your life as there is 


438 


THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK 


at present.’ Hudden and Diidden that very night killed their 
bullocks, and set out the next morning to sell their hides. On 
coming to the place they went to all the merchants, but could only 
get a trifle for them. At last they had to take what they could 
get, and came home in a great rage and vowing revenge on poor 
Donald. He had a pretty good guess how matters would turn out, 
and his bed being under the kitchen-window, he was afraid they 
would rob him, or perhaps kill him when asleep ; and on that 
account, when he was going to bed, he left his old mother in his 
bed, and lay down in her place, which was in the other side of the 
house, and they, taking the old woman for Donald, choked her in 
the bed ; but he making some noise, they had to retreat and leave 
the money behind them, which grieved them very much. However, 
by daybreak, Donald got his mother on his back, and carried her to 
town. Stopping at a well, he fixed his mother with her staff as if 
she was stooping for a drink, and then went into a public-house 
convenient and called for a dram. ‘ I wish,’ said he to a woman 
that stood near him, ‘ you would tell my mother to come in. She 
is at yon well trying to get a drink, and she is hard in hearing : if 
she does not observe you, give her a little shake, and tell her that I 
want her.’ The woman called her several times, but she seemed to 
take no notice : at length she went to her and shook her by the arm ; 
but when she let her go again, she tumbled on her head into the 
well, and, as the woman thought, was drowned. She, in great fear 
and surprise at the accident, told Donald what had happened. ‘ 0 
mercy,’ said he, ‘ what is this 1 ’ He ran and pulled her out of 
the well, weeping and lamenting all the time, and acting in such a 
manner that you would imagine that he had lost his senses. The 
woman, on the other hand, was far worse than Donald : for his grief 
was only feigned, but she imagined herself to be the cause of the old 
woman’s death. The inhabitants of the town, hearing what had 
happened, agreed to make Donald up a good sum of money for his 
loss, as the accident happened in their place ; and Donald brought a 
greater sum home with him than he got for the magpie. They buried 
Donald’s mother ; and as soon as he saw Hudden and Dudden, he 
showed them the last purse of money he had got. ‘ You thought 
to kill me last night,’ said he ; ‘ but it was good for me it happened 
on my mother, for I got all that purse for her to make gunpowder.’ 

“ That very night Hudden and Dudden killed their mothers, 
and the next morning set off with them to town. On coming to 
the town with their burden on their backs, they went up and down 
crying, ‘ Who will buy old wives for gunpowder ? ’ so that every one 
laughed at them, and the boys at last clodded them out of the place. 
They then saw the cheat, and vowing revenge on Donald, buried 


HUDDEN AND DUDDEN 


489 

the old women and set off in pursuit of him. Coming to his house, 
they found him sitting at his breakfast, and seizing him, put him in 
a sack, and went to drown him in a river at some distance. As 
they were going along the highway they raised a hare, which tliey 
saw liad hut tliree feet, and, throwing off the sack, ran after her, 
thinking by appearance she would be easily taken. In their absence 
there came a drover that way, and hearing Donald singing in the 
sack, wondered greatly what could be the matter. ‘ What is the 
reason,’ said he, ‘ that you are singing, and you confined ? ’ ‘ Oh, I 

am going to heaven,’ said Donald : ‘ and in a short time I expect to 
be free from trouble.’ ‘Oh dear,’ said the drover, ‘what will I give 
you if you let me to your place 1 ’ ‘ Indeed I do not know,’ said he : 

‘ it would take a good sum.’ ‘ I have not much money,’ said the 
drover ; ‘ but I have twenty head of fine cattle, which I will give 
you to exchange places with me.’ ‘ Well, well,’ says Donald, ‘ I 
don’t care if I should : loose the sack and I will come out.’ In a 
moment the drover liberated him, and went into the sack himself : 
and Donald drove home the fine heifers and left them in his pasture. 

“ Hudden and Dudden having caught the hare, returned, and 
getting the sack on one of their backs, carried Donald, as they 
thought, to tlie river, and threw him in, where he immediately 
sank. They then marched home, intending to take immediate 
possession of Donald’s property ; but how great was their surprise, 
when they found him safe at home before them, with such a fine 
herd of cattle, whereas they knew he had none before ! ‘ Donald,’ 

said tliey, ‘ what is all this '! We thouglit you were drowned, and 
yet you are here before us ’ ‘ Ah ! ’ said he, ‘ if I had but help 

along with me when you threw me in, it would have been the best 
job ever I met with ; for of all the sight of cattle and gold that ever 
was seen, is there, and no one to own them ; but I was not able to 
manage more than what you see, and I could show you the spot 
where you might get hundreds.’ They both swore they would be 
his friends, and Donald accordingly led them to a very deep part of 
the river, and lifting up a stone, ‘Now,’ said he, ‘watch this,’ 
throwing it into the stream. ‘ There is the very place, and go in, 
one of you, first, and if you want help you have nothing to do but 
call.’ Hudden jumping in, and sinking to the bottom, rose up 
again, and making a bubbling noise as those do that are drowning, 
seemed trying to speak but could not. ‘ What is that he is saying 
now ? ’ says Dudden. ‘ Faith,’ says Donald, ‘ he is calling for help — 
don’t you hear him? Stand about,’ continued he, running back, ‘ till I 
leap in. I know how to do better than any of you.’ Dudden, to have 
the advantage of him, jumped in off tlie bank, and was drowned along 
with Hudden. And this was the end of Hudden and Dudden.” 


440 


THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK 


Spaeman 

“A POOE man in the North of Ireland was under the necessity of 
selling his cow to help to supi)ort his family. Having sold his cow, 
he went into an inn and called for some liquor. Having drunk 
pretty heartily, he fell asleep, and when he awoke he found he had 
been robbed of his money. Poor Roger was at a loss to know how 
to act ; and, as is often the case, when the landlord found that his 
money was gone, he turned him out of doors. The night was 
extremely dark, and the poor man was compelled to take up his 
lodging in an old uninhabited house at the end of the town. 

“ Roger had not remained long here until he was surprised by 
the noise of three men, whom he observed making a hole, and, 
having deposited something therein, closing it carefully up again and 
then going away. The next morning, as Roger was walking to- 
wards the town, he heard that a cloth-shop had been robbed to a 
great amount, and that a reward of thirty pounds was offered to 
any person who could discover the thieves. This was joyful news 
to Roger, who recollected what he had been witness to the night 
before. He accordingly went to the shop and told the gentleman 
that for the reward he would recover the goods, and secure the 
robbers, provided he got six stout men to attend him. All which 
was thankfully granted him. 

“ At night Roger and his men concealed themselves in the old 
house, and in a short time after the robbers came to the spot for 
the purpose of removing their booty ; but they were instantly seized 
and carried into the town prisoners, with the goods. Roger re- 
ceived- the reward and returned home, well satisfied with his good 
luck. Not many days after, it was noised over the country that 
this robbery was discovered by the help of one of the best Spaemen 
to be found— insomuch that it reached the ears of a worthy gentle- 
man of the county of Derry, who made strict inquiry to find liiin 
out. Having at length discovered his abode, he sent for Roger, 
and told him he was every day losing some valuable article, and as 
he was famed for discovering lost things, if he could find out the 
same, he should be handsomely rewarded. Poor Roger was put to 
a stand, not knowing what answer to make, as he had not the 
smallest knowledge of the like. But recovering himself a little, he 
resolved to humour the joke ; and, thinking he would make a good 
dinner and some drink of it, told the gentleman he would try what 
he could do, but that he must have a room to himself for three 
hours, during which time he must have three bottles of strong ale 
and his dinner. All whieh the gentleman told him he should have. 


THE SPAEMAN 


441 


No sooner was it made known that the Spaeman was in the house 
than the servants were all in confusion, wishing to know what 
would be said. 

“As soon as Roger had taken his dinner, he was shown into an 
elegant room, where the gentleman sent him a quart of ale by the 
butler. No sooner had he set down the ale than Roger said, 
‘ There comes one of them ’ (intimating the bargain he had made 
with the gentleman for the three quarts), which the butler took in 
a wrong light and imagined it was himself. He went away in 
great confusion and told his wife. ‘ Poor fool,’ said she, ‘ the fear 
makes you think it is you he means ; but I will attend in your 
place, and hear what he will say to me.’ Accordingly she carried 
the second quart : but no sooner had she opened the door than Roger 
cried, ‘ There comes two of them.’ The woman, no less surprised 
than her husband, told him the Spaeman knew her too. ‘ And what 
will we do?’ said he. ‘We will be hanged.’ ‘ I will tell you what 
we must do,’ said she : ‘ we must send the groom the next time ; 
and if he is known, we must offer him a good sum not to discover 
on us.’ Tlie butler Avent to William and told him the whole story, 
and that he must go next to see what the Spaeman would say to 
him, telling him at the same time what to do in case he was known 
also. When the hour was expired, William was sent with the 
third quart of ale— which when Roger observed, he cried out, 
‘ There is the tiiird and last of them ! ’ At which the groom 
changed colour, and told him ‘that if he would not discover on 
them, they would show him where the goods Avere all concealed and 
give him five pounds besides.’ Roger, not a little surprised at the 
discovery he had made, told him ‘if he recovered the goods, he 
Avould follow them no furtlier.’ 

“ By this time the gentleman called Roger to know hoAv he had 
succeeded. He told him ‘ he could find the goods, but that the 
thief was gone.’ ‘ I Avill be well satisfied,’ said lie, ‘ Avith the goods, 
for some of them are very valuable.’ ‘ Let the butler come along 
with me, and tlie whole shall be recovered.’ Roger Avas accord- 
ingly conducted to the back of the stables, where the articles AA^ere 
concealed — such as silver cups, spoons, bowls, knives, forks, and a 
variety of other articles of great value. 

“Wlien the supposed Spaeman brought back the stolen goods, 
the gentleman Avas so highly pleased Avith Roger that he insisted 
on Ids remaining with him ahvays, as he supposed he Avould be 
perfectly safe as long as lie was about his house. Roger gladly 
embraced the offer, and in a feAv days took possession of a piece of 
land which the gentleman had given to him in consideration of his 
great abilities. 


442 


THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK 


“ Some time after this the gentleman was relating to a large 
company the discovery Roger had made, and that he could tell any- 
thing. One of the gentlemen said he would dress a dish of meat, 
and bet fifty pounds that he could not tell what was in it, though 
he would allow him to taste it. The bet being taken and the dish 
dressed, the gentleman sent for Roger and told him the bet that 
was depending on him. Poor Roger did not know what to do ; but 
at last he consented to the trial. The dish being produced, he 
tasted it, but could not tell what it was. At last, seeing he was 
fairly beat, he said, ‘ Gentlemen, it is folly to talk : the fox may 
run awhile, but he is caught at last ’ — allowing with himself that 
he was found out. The gentleman that had made the bet then 
confessed that it was a fox he had dressed in the dish : at which 
they all shouted out in favour of the Spaeman — particularly his 
master, who had more confidence in him than ever. 

“ Roger then went home, and so famous did he become, that no 
one dared take anything but what belonged to them, fearing that 
the Spaeman would discover on them.” 


And so we shut up the Hedge-school Library, and close the 
Galway Nights’ Entertainments. They are not quite so genteel as 
Almack’s to be sure ; but many a lady who has her opera-box in 
London has listened to a piper in Ireland. 

A prqpos of pipers, here is a young one that I caught and 



copied to-day. He was paddling in the mud, shining in the sun 
careless of his rays, and playing his little tin music as happy as Mr. 
Cooke with his oboe. 

Perhaps the above verses and tales are not unlike my little 


A GALWAY MUSICIAN 


443 


Galway musician. They are grotesque and rugged ; but they are 
pretty and innocent-hearted too ; and as such, polite persons may 
deign to look at them for once in a way. While we have Signor 
Costa in a white neckcloth ordering opera-bands to play for us the 
music of Donizetti, which is not only sublime but genteel : of course 
such poor little operatives as he who plays the wind-instrument 
yonder cannot expect to be heard often. But is not this Galway ? 
And how far is Galway from the Haymarket ? 


CHAPTER XVII 

FROM GALIVAY TO B ALLIN AHINCH 

T he [Clifden car, which carries the Dublin letters into the 
heart of Connemara, conducts the passenger over one of the 
most wild and beautiful districts that it is ever the fortune 
of a traveller to examine; and I could not help thinking, as we 
passed through it, at how much pains and expense honest English 
cockneys are to go and look after natural beauties far inferior, in 
countries which, though more distant, are not a whit more strange 
than this one. No doubt, ere long, when people know how easy 
the task is, the rush of London tourism will come this way ; and I 
shall be very happy if these pages shall be able to awaken in one 
bosom beating in Tooley Street or the Temple the desire to travel 
towards Ireland next year. 

After leaving the quaint old town behind us, and ascending one 
or two small eminences to the north-westward, the traveller, from 
the car, gets a view of the wide sheet of Lough Corrib shining in 
the sun, as we saw it, with its low dark banks stretching round 
it. If the view is gloomy, at least it is characteristic : nor are we 
delayed by it very long ; for though the lake stretches northwards 
into the very midst of the Joyce country (and is there in the close 
neighbourhood of another huge lake. Lough Mask, which again is 
near to another sheet of water), yet from this road henceforth, after 
keeping company with it for some five miles, we only get occasional 
views of it, passing over hills and througli trees, by many rivers 
and small lakes, which are dependent upon that of Corrib. Gentle- 
men’s seats, on the road from Galway to Moycullen, are scattered 
in great profusion. Perhaps there is grass growing on the gravel- 
walk, and the iron gates of the tumble-down old lodges are rather 
rickety ; but, for all that, the places look comfortable, hospitable, 
and spacious. As for the shabbiness and want of finish here and 
there, the English eye grows quite accustomed to it in a month ; 
and I find the bad condition of the Galway houses by no means so 
painful as that of the places near Dublin. At some of the lodges, 
as we pass, the mail-carman, with a warning shout, flings a bag of 
letters. I saw a little party looking at one which lay there in the 


OUGHTERARD 


445 


road crying, “ Come, take me ! ” but nobody cares to steal a bag of 
letters in this country, I suppose, and the carman drove on without 
any alarm. Two days afterwards a gentleman with whom I was 
in company left on a rock his book of fishing-flies; and I can 
assure you there was a very different feeling expressed about the 
safety of that. 

In the first part of the journey, the neighbourhood of the road 
seemed to be as populous as in other parts of the country ; troops 
of red-petticoated peasantry peering from their stone-cabins ; yelling 
children following the car, and crying, “ Lash, lash ! ” It was 
Sunday, and you would see many a white chapel among the green 
bare plains to tlie right of the road, the courtyard blackened with a 
swarm of cloaks. The service seems to continue (on the part of the 
people) all day. Troops of people issuing from the chapel met us 
at Moycullen ; and ten miles farther on, at Oughterard, their devo- 
tions did not yet seem to be concluded. 

A more beautiful village can scarcely be seen than this. It 
stands upon Lough Corrib, the banks of which are here, for once at 
least, picturesque and romantic : and a pretty river, the Feogh, 
comes rushing over rocks and by woods until it passes the town and 
meets the lake. Some pretty buildings in the village stand on each 
bank of this stream : a Roman Catholic chapel with a curate’s neat 
lodge ; a little church on one side of it, a fine court-house of grey 
stone on the other. And here it is that we get into the famous 
district of Connemara, so celebrated in Irish stories, so mysterious 
to the London tourist. 

“ It presents itself,” says the Guide-book, “ under every possible 
combination of heathy moor, bog, lake, and mountain. Extensive 
mossy plains and wild pastoral valleys lie embosomed among the 
mountains, and support numerous herds of cattle and horses, for 
which the district has been long celebrated. These wild solitudes, 
which occupy by far the greater part of the centre of the county, 
are held by a hardy and ancient race of grazing farmers, who live 
in a very primitive state, and, generally speaking, till little beyond 
what supplies their immediate wants. For the first ten miles the 
country is comparatively open ; and the mountains on the left, 
which are not of great elevation, can be distinctly traced as they 
rise along the edge of the heathy plain. 

“Our road continues along the Feogh river, which expands 
itself into several considerable lakes, and at five miles from Ouglite- 
rard we reach Lough Bofin, which the road also skirts. Passing 
in succession Lough-a-Preaghan, the lakes of Anderran and Shindella, 
at ten miles from Oughterard we reach Sly me and Lynn’s Inn, or 


446 


THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK 


Halfway House, which is near the shore of Lt)ughonard. Now, as 
we advance towards the group of Binabola, or the Twelve Pins, the 
most gigantic scenery is displayed.” 

But the best guide-book that ever was written cannot set the 
view before the mind’s eye of the reader, and I won’t attempt to 
pile up big words in place of these wild mountains, over which the 
clouds as tliey passed, or the sunshine as it went and came, cast 
every variety of tint, light, and shadow ; nor can it be expected that 
long level sentences, however smooth and shining, can be made to 
pass as representations of those calm lakes by which we took our 
way. All one can do is to lay down the pen and ruminate, and 
cry, “ Beautiful ! ” once more ; and to the reader say, “ Come and 
see ! ” 

Wild and wide as the prospect around us is, it has somehow a 
kindly friendly look ; dilfering in this from the fierce loneliness of 
some similar scenes in Wales that I have viewed. Ragged women 
and children come out of rude stone-huts to see the car as it passes. 
But it is impossible for the pencil to give due raggedness to the rags, 
or to convey a certain picturesque mellowness of colour that the 
garments assume. The sexes, with regard to raiment, do not seem 
to be particular. There were many boys on the road in the national 
red petticoat, having no other covering for their lean brown legs. 
As for shoes, the women eschew them almost entirely ; and I saw a 
peasant trudging from mass in a handsome scarlet cloak, a fine blue- 
cloth gown, turned up to show a new lining of the same colour, and 
a petticoat quite white and neat — in a dress of which the cost must 
have been at least £10 ; and her husband walked in front carrying 
her shoes and stockings. 

Tlie road had conducted us for miles through the vast property 
of the gentleman to whose house I was bound, Mr. Martin, the 
Member for the county ; and the last and prettiest part of the 
journey was round the Lake of Ballinahinch, with tall mountains 
rising immediately above us on the right, pleasant woody hills on 
the opposite side of the lake, with the roofs of the houses rising 
above the trees ; and in an island in the midst of the water a ruined 
old castle cast a long white reflection into the blue waters where it 
lay. A land-pirate used to live in that castle, one of the peasants 
told me, in the time of “ Oliver Cromwell.” And a fine fastness it 
was for a robber, truly ; for there was no road through these wild 
countries in his time — nay, only thirty years since, this lake was at 
three days’ distance of Galway. Then comes the question, What, 
in a country where there were no roads and no travellers, and 
where the inhabitants have been wretchedly poor from time im- 


AN IRISH GENTLEMAN’S HOUSE 


447 


memorial, — what was there for the land-pirate to rob 1 But let us 
not be too curious about times so early as those of Oliver Cromwell. 
I have heard the name many times from the Irish peasant, who still 
has an awe of the grim resolute Protector. 

The builder of Ballinalnnch House has placed it to command a 
view of a pretty melancholy river that runs by it, through many 
green flats and picturesque rocky grounds ; but from the lake it is 
scarcely visible. And so, in like manner, I fear it must remain 
invisible to the reader too, with all its kind inmates, and frank 
cordial hospitality ; unless he may take a fancy to visit Galway 
himself, when, as I can vouch, a very small pretext will make him 
enjoy both. 

It will, however, be only a small breach of confidence to say 
that the major-domo of the establishment (who has adopted ac- 
curately the voice and manner of his rhaster with a severe dignity 
of his own which is quite original) ordered me on going to bed “ not 
to move in the morning till he called me,” at the same time express- 
ing a hearty hope that I should “want nothing more that evening.” 
Who would dare, after such peremptory orders, not to fall asleep im- 
mediately, and in this way secure the repose of Mr. J — n M-ll-y 1 

There may be many comparisons drawn between English and 
Irish gentlemen’s houses ; but perhaps the most striking point of 
difference between the two is the immense following of the Irish 
house, such as would make an English housekeeper crazy almost. 
Three comfortable, well-clothed, good-humoured fellows walked down 
with me from the car, persisting in carrying one a bag, another a 
sketching-stool, and so on. Walking about the premises in the 
morning, sundry others were visible in the courtyard, and near the 
kitchen-door. In the grounds a gentleman, by name Mr. Marcus 
C-rr, began discoursing to me regarding the place, the planting, the 
fish, the grouse, and the Master; being himself, doubtless, one of 
the irregulars of the house. As for maids, there were half-a-score 
of them skurrying about the house ; and I am not ashamed to 
confess that some of them were exceedingly good-looking. And if 
I might venture to say a word more, it would be respecting Con- 
nemara breakfasts ; but this would be an entire and flagrant breach 
of confidence ; and, to be sure, the dinners were just as good. 

One of the days of my three days’ visit was to be devoted to 
the lakes ; and as a party had been arranged for the second day 
after my arrival, I was glad to take advantage of the society of a 
gentleman staying in the house, and ride with him to the neighbour- 
ing town of Clifden. 

The ride thither from Ballinahinch is surprisingly beautiful ; 
and as you ascend the high ground from the two or three rude 


448 


THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK 


stone-huts which face tlie entrance-gates of the house, there are 
views of the lakes and the surrounding country, which the best 
parts of Killarney do not surpass, I think ; although the Connemara 
lakes do not possess the advantage of wood which belongs to the 
famous Kerry landscape. 

But the cultivation of the country is only in its infancy as yet, 
and it is easy to see how . vast its resources are, and what capital 
and cultivation may do for it. In the green patches among the 
rocks, and on the mountain-sides, wherever crops were grown, they 
flourished ; plenty of natural wood is springing up in various places ; 
and there is no end to what the planter may do and to what time 
and care may effect. The carriage-road to Clifden is but ten years 
old : as it has brought the means of communication into the country, 
the commerce will doubtless follow it ; and in fact, in going through 
the whole kingdom, one can’t but be struck with the idea that not 
one-hundredth part of its capabilities are yet brought into action, 
or even known perhaps, and that by the easy and certain progress 
of time, Ireland will be poor Ireland no longer. 

For instance, we rode by a vast green plain, skirting a lake and 
river, which is now useless almost for pasture, and which a little 
draining will convert into thousands of acres of rich productive land. 
Streams and falls of water dash by everywhere — they have only to 
utilise this water-power for mills and factories — and hard by are 
some of the finest bays in the world, where ships can deliver and 
receive foreign and home produce. At Roundstone especially, where 
a little town has been erected, the bay is said to be unexampled 
for size, depth, and shelter ; and the Government is now, through 
the rocks and hills on their wild shore, cutting a coast-road to 
Bunown, the most westerly part of Connemara, whence there is 
another good road to Clifden. Among the charges which the 
“ Repealers ” bring against the Union, they should include at least 
this ; they would never have had these roads but for the Union ; 
roads which are as much at the charge of the London taxpayer as 
of the most ill-used Milesian in Connaught. 

A string of small lakes follow the road to Clifden, with 
mountains on the right of the traveller for the chief part of the 
way. A few figures at work in the bog-lands, a red petticoat 
passing here and there, a goat or two browsing among the stones, 
or a troop of ragged whitey-brown children who came out to gaze 
at the car, form. the chief society on the road. The first house at 
the entrance to Clifden is a gigantic poorhouse — tall, large, ugly, 
comfortable; it commands the town, and looks almost as big as 
every one of the houses therein. The town itself is but of a few 
years’ date, and seems to thrive in its small way. Clifden Castle 


A COUNTRY HOUSE IN THE FAR WEST 449 

is a fine chateau in the neighbourhood, and belongs to another owner 
of immense lands in Galway — Mr. D’Arcy. 

Here a drive was proposed along the coast to Bunown, and I 
was glad to see some more of the country, and its character. 
Nothing can be wilder. We passed little lake after lake, lying 
a few furlongs inwards from the shore. There were rocks every- 
where, some patches of cultivated land here and there, nor was 
there any want of inhabitants along this savage coast. There were 
numerous cottages, if cottages they may be called, and women and, 



above all, children in plenty. One of the former is drawn above — 
her attitude as she stood gazing at the car. To depict the multi- 
plicity of her rags would require a month’s study. 

At length we came in sight of a half-built edifice which is 
approached by a rocky, dismal, grey road, guarded by two or three 
broken gates, against which rocks and stones were piled, which had 
to be removed to give an entrance to our car. The gates were 
closed so laboriously, I presume, to prevent the egress of a single 
black consumptive pig, far gone in the family way— a teeming 
skeleton — that was cropping the thin dry grass that grew upon a 
round hill which rises behind this most dismal castle of Bunown. 

If the traveller only seeks for strange sights, this place will 
5 2 F 


450 


THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK 


repay his curiosity. Such a dismal house is not to be seen in all 
England ; or, perhaps, such a dismal situation. The sea lies before 
and behind ; and on each side, likewise, are rocks and copper-coloured 
meadows, by which a few trees have made an attempt to grow. 
The owner of the house had, however, begun to add to it ; and 
there, unfinished, is a whole apparatus of turrets, and staring raw 
stone and mortar, and fresh ruinous carpenters’ work. And then 
the courtyard ! — tumble-down outhouses, staring empty pointed 
windows, and new-smeared plaster cracking from the walls — a black 
heap of turf, a mouldy pump, a wretched old coal-scuttle, emptily 
sunning itself in the midst of this cheerful scene ! There was an 
old Gorgon who kept the place, and who was in perfect unison witli 
it : Venus herself would become bearded, blear-eyed, and haggard if 
left to be the housekeeper of this dreary place. 

In the house was a comfortable parlour, inhabited by the priest 
who has the painful charge of the district. Here were his books 
and his breviaries, his reading-desk with the cross engraved upon it, 
and his portrait of Daniel O’Connell the Liberator to grace tiie walls 
of his lonely cell. There was a dead crane lianging at the door on 
a gaff: his red fish-like eyes were staring open, and his eager 
grinning bill. A rifle-ball had passed through his body. And this 
was doubtless the only game about the place ; for we saw the 
sportsman who liad killed the bird hunting vainly up the round hill 
for other food for powder. This gentleman had had good sport, he 
said, shooting seals upon a neighbouring island, four of which 
animals he had slain. 

Mounting up the round hill, we had a view of the Sline Lights 
— the most westerly point in Ireland. 

Here too was a ruined sort of summer-house, dedicated “ Deo 
Hibernia Liberatori.” When these lights were put up, I am 
told the proprietor of Bunown was recommended to apply for 
compensation to Parliament, inasmuch as there would be no more 
ivrecks on the coast : from which branch of commerce the inhabitants 
of the district used formerly to derive a considerable profit. Between 
these Sline Lights and America nothing lies but the Atlantic. It 
was beautifully blue and bright on this day, and the sky almost 
cloudless; but I think the brightness only made the scene more 
dismal, it being of that order of beauties which cannot bear the full 
light, but require a cloud or a curtain to set them off to advantage. 
A pretty story was told me by the gentleman who had killed the 
seals. The place where he had been staying for sport was almost as 
lonely as this Bunown, and inhabited by a priest too — a young, 
lively, well-educated man. “When I came here first,” the priest 
said, “ / cried for two days : ” but afterwards he grew to like the 


FLY-FISHING 


451 


place exceedingly, his whole heart being directed towards it, his 
chapel, and his cure. Who would not honour such missionaries — 
the virtues they silently practise, and the doctrines they preach? 
After hearing that story, I think Bunown looked not quite so 
dismal, as it is inhabited, they say, by such another character. 
What a pity it is that John Tuam, in the next county of Mayo, 
could not find such another hermitage to learn modesty in, and 
forget his Graceship, his Lordship, and the sham titles by which he 
sets such store. 

A moon as round and bright as any moon that ever shone, and 
riding in a sky perfectly cloudless, gave us a good promise of a fine 
day for the morrow, which was to be devoted to the lakes in the 
neighbourhood of Ballinahinch : one of which, Lough Ina, is said to 
be of exceeding beauty. But no man can speculate upon Irish 
weather. I have seen a day beginning with torrents of rain that 
looked as if a deluge was at hand, clear up in a few minutes, without 
any reason, and against the prognostications of the glass and all 
other weather-prophets. So in like manner, after the astonishingly 
fine night, there came a villainous dark day : which, however, did 
not set in fairly for rain until we were an hour on our journey, with 
a couple of stout boatmen rowing us over Ballinaliinch Lake. Being, 
however, thus fairly started, the water began to come down, not in 
torrents certainly, but in that steady, creeping, insinuating mist, of 
which we scarce know the luxury in England ; and which, I am 
bound to say, will wet a man’s jacket as satisfactorily as a cataract 
would do. 

It was just such another day as that of the famous stag-hunt at 
Killarney, in a word ; and as, in the fiist instance, we went to see 
the deer killed, and saw nothing thereof, so, in the second case, we 
went to see the landscape with precisely the same good fortune. 
The mountains covered their modest beauties in impenetrable veils 
of clouds ; and the only consolation to the boat’s crew was, that it 
was a remarkably good day for trout-fishing — which amusement 
some people are said to prefer to the examination of landscapes, 
however beautiful. 

0 you who laboriously throw flies in English rivers, and catch, 
at the expiration of a hard day’s walking, casting, and wading, two 
or three feeble little brown trouts of two or three ounces in weight, 
how would you rejoice to have but an hour’s sport in Derry clear 
or Ballinahinch ; where you have but to cast, and lo ! a big trout 
springs at your fly, and, after making a vain struggling, splashing, 
and plunging for a while, is infallibly landed in the net and thence 
into the boat ! The single rod in the boat caught enough fish in an 
hour to feast the crew, consisting of five persons, and the family of 


452 


THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK 


a herd of Mr. Martin’s, who has a pretty cottage on Derryclear 
Lake, inhabited by a cow and its calf, a score of fowls, and I don’t 
know how many sons and daughters. 

Having caught enough trout to satisfy any moderate appetite, 
like true sportsmen the gentlemen on board our boat became eager 
to hook a salmon. Had they hooked a few salmon, no doubt they 
would have trolled for whales, or for a mermaid ; one of which finny 
beauties the waterman swore he had seen on the shore of Derryclear 
— he with Jim Mullen being above on a rock, the mermaid on tlie 
shore directly beneath them, visible to the middle, and as usual 
“racking her hair.” It was fair hair, the boatman said; and he 
appeared as convinced of the existence of the mermaid as he was 
of the trout just landed in the boat. 

In regard of mermaids, there is a gentleman living near Killala 
Bay, whose name was mentioned to me, and who declares solemnly 
that one day, shooting on the sands there, he saw a mermaid, and 
determined to try her with a shot. So he drew the small charge 
from his gun and loaded it with ball — tliat he always had by him 
for seal-shooting — fired, and hit the mermaid through the breast. 
The screams and moans of the creature— whose person he describes 
most accurately — were the most horrible heart-rending noises that 
he ever, he said, heard : and not only were they heard by him, but 
by the fishermen along the coast, who were furiously angry against 

Mr. A n, because, they said, the injury done to the mermaid 

would cause her to drive all the fish away from the bay for years 
to come. 

But we did not, to my disappointment, catch a glimpse of one 
of these interesting beings, nor of the great sea-horse which is said 
to inhabit these waters, nor of any fairies (of whom the stroke-oar, 
Mr. Marcus, told us not to speak, for they didn’t like bein’ spoken 
of) ; nor even of a salmon, though the fishermen produced the most 
tempting flies. The only animal of any size that was visible we 
saw while lying by a swift black river that comes jumping with 
innumerable little waves into Derryclear, and where the salmon are 
especially suffered to “ stand ” : this animal was an eagle — a real 
wild eagle, with grey wings and a white head and belly : it swept 
round us, within gunshot reach, once or twice, through the leaden 
sky, and then settled on a grey rock, and began to scream its shrill 
ghastly aquiline note. 

The attempts on the salmon having failed, the rain continuing 
to fall steadily, the herd’s cottage before named was resorted to : 
when Marcus, the boatman, commenced forthwith to gut the fish, 
and taking down some charred turf-ashes from the blazing fire, on 
which about a hundredweight of potatoes were boiling, he — Marcus 


TROUT-FISHING 


453 


— proceeded to grill on the floor some of the trout, which we after- 
wards ate with immeasurable satisfaction. They were such trouts 
as, when once tasted, remain for ever in the recollection of a 
commonly grateful mind — rich, flaky, creamy, full of flavour. A 
Parisian gourmand would have paid ten francs for the smallest 
cooleen among them ; and, when transported to his capital, how 
different in flavour would they have been ! — how inferior to what 
they were as we devoured them, fresh from the fresh waters of the 
lake, and jerked as it were from the water to the gridiron ! The 
world had not had time to spoil those innocent beings before they 
were gobbled up with pepper and salt, and missed, no doubt, by 
their friends. I should like to know more of their “ se^.” But 
enough of this : my feelings overpower me : suffice it to say, they 
were red or salmon trouts — none of your white-fleshed brown- 
skinned river fellows. 

When the gentlemen had finished their repast, the boatmen and 
the family set to work upon the potatoes, a number of the remain- 
ing fish, and a store of other good things ; then we all sat round 
the turf-fire in the dark cottage, the rain coming down steadily 
outside, and veiling everything except the shrubs and verdure imme- 
diately about the cottage. The herd, the herd’s wife, and a nonde- 
script female friend, two healthy young herdsmen in corduroy rags, 
the herdsman’s daughter paddling about with bare feet, a stout 
black-eyed wench with her gown over her head, and a red petticoat 
not quite so good as new, the two boatmen, a badger just killed and 
turned inside out, the gentlemen, some hens cackling and flapping 
about among the rafters, a calf in a corner cropping green meat and 
occasionally visited by the cow her mamma, formed the society of 
the place. It was rather a strange picture ; but as for about two 
hours we sat there, and maintained an almost unbroken silence, 
and as there was no other amusement but to look at the rain, I 
began, after the enthusiasm of the first half-hour, to think that 
after all London was a bearable place, and that for want of a turf- 
fire and a bench in Connemara, one might put up with a sofa and 
a newspaper in Pall Mall. 

This, however, is according to tastes ; and I must say that Mr. 
Marcus betrayed a most bitter contempt for all cockney tastes, 
awkwardness, and ignorance : and very right too. The night, on 
our return home, all of a sudden cleared ; but though the fisher- 
men, much to my disgust — at the expression of which, however, 
the rascals only laughed — persisted in making more casts for trout, 
and trying back in the dark upon the spots which we had visited 
in the morning, it appeared the fish had been frightened off by the 
rain ; and the sportsmen met with such indifferent success that at 


454 


THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK 


about ten o’clock we found ourselves at Ballinahinch. Dinner was 
served at eleven : and, I believe, there was some whisky-punch 
afterwards, recommended medicinally and to prevent the ill effects 
of the wetting : but that is neither here nor there. 

The next day the petty sessions were to be held at Roundstone, 
a little town which has lately sprung up near the noble bay of that 
name. I was glad to see some specimens of Connemara litigation, 
as also to behold at least one thousand beautiful views that lie on 
the five miles of road between the town and Ballinahinch. Rivers 
and rocks, mountains and sea, green plains and bright skies, how 
(for the hundred-and-fiftieth time) can pen-and-ink set you down^ 
But if Berghem could have seen those blue mountains, and Karel 
Dujardin could have copied some of these green airy plains, with 
their brilliant little coloured groups of peasants, beggars, horsemen, 
many an Englishman would know Connemara upon canvas as he 
does Italy or Flanders now. 


CHAPTER XVIII 


ROUNDS TONE PETTY SESSIONS 



HE temple of august Themis,” as a Frenchman would call the 


sessions-room at Roundstone, is an apartment of some twelve 


^ feet square, with a deal table and a couple of chairs for the 
accommodation of the magistrates, and a Testament with a paper 
cross pasted on it to be kissed by the witnesses and complainants 
who frequent the court. The law-papers, warrants, &c., are kept 
on the sessions-clerk’s bed in an adjoining apartment, which com- 
mands a fine view of the courtyard — where there is a stack of turf, 
a pig, and a shed beneath which the magistrates’ horses were 
sheltered during the sitting. The sessions-clerk is a gentleman 
“having,” as the phrase is here, both the English and Irish 
languages, and interpreting for the benefit of the worshipful 


bench. 


And if tfie cockney reader supposes that in this remote country 
spot, BO wild, so beautiful, so distant from the hum and vice of 
cities, quarrelling is not, and litigation never shows her snaky head, 
he is very much mistaken. From what I saw, I would recommend 
any ingenious young attorney whose merits are not appreciated in 
the metropolis, to make an attempt upon the village of Roundstone ; 
where as yet, I believe, there is no solicitor, and where an immense 
and increasing practice might speedily be secured. Mr. O’Connell, 
who is always crying out “ Justice for Ireland,” finds strong sup- 
porters among the Roundstonians, whose love of justice for them- 
selves is inordinate. I took down the plots of the first five little 
litigious dramas which were played before Mr. Martin and the 
stipendiary magistrate. 

Case 1. — A boy summoned a young man for beating him so 
severely that he kept his bed for a week, thereby breaking an 
engagement with his master, and losing a quarter’s wages. 

The defendant statexl, in reply, that the plaintiff was engaged — 
in a field through which defendant passed with another person — 
setting two little boys to fight ; on which defendant took plaintiff 
by the collar and turned him out of the field. A witness who was 
present swore that defendant never struck plaintiff at all, nor 


456 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK 

kicked him, nor ill-used him, further than by pushing him out of 
the field. 

As to the loss of his quarter’s wages, the plaintiff ingeniously 
proved that he had afterwards returned to his master, that he had 
worked out his time, and that he had in fact received already the 
greater part of his hire. Uj)on which the case was dismissed, the 
defendant quitting the court without a stain upon his honour. 

Case 2 Avas a most piteous and lamentable case of killing a coav. 
The plaintiff stepped forward Avith many tears and much gesticula- 
tion to state the fact, and also to declare that she Avas in danger of 
her life from the defendant’s family. 

It appeared on the evidence that a portion of the defendant’s 
respectable family are at i)resent undergoing the rewards Avhich the 
laAV assigns to those avIio make mistakes in fields Avith regard to the 
ownership of sheep Avhich sometimes graze there. The defendant’s 
father, O’Damon, for having appropriated one of the fleecy bleaters 
of O’Meliboeus, AA^as at present passed beyond sea to a country 
Avhere wool, and consequently mutton, is so plentiful, that he Avill 
have the less temptation. Defendant’s brothers tread the Ixionic 
Avheel for the same offence. Plaintiff’s son had been the informer 
in the case : hence the feud between the families, the threats on the 
part of the defendant, the murder of the innocent coav. 

But upon investigation of the business, it AA’as discovered, and 
on the plaintiff’s OAvn testimony, that the coav had not been killed, 
nor even been injured ; but that the defendant had flung two stones 
at it, Avhich might have inflicted great injury had they hit the 
animal with greater force in the eye or in any delicate i)lace. 

Defendant admitted flinging the stones, but alleged as a reason 
that the cow Avas trespassing on his grounds ; AAdiich plaintiff' did 
not seem inclined to deny. Case dismissed. — Defendant retires 
Avith unblemished honour; on AAdiich his mother steps forAvard, 
and lifting up her hands Avith tears and shrieks, calls upon God 
to Avitness that the defendant’s own brother-in-law had sold to 
her husband the very sheep on account of Avhich he had been 
transported. 

Not wishing probably to doubt the justice of the verdict of an 
Irish jury, the magistrate abruptly put an end to the lamentation 
and oaths of the injured woman by causing her to be sent out of 
court, and called the third cause on. 

This was a case of thrilling interest and a complicated nature, 
involving two actions, which ought each perhaps to have been gone 
into separately, but were taken together. In the first place Timothy 
Horgan brought an action against Patrick Dolan for breach of con- 
tract in not remaining AAuth him for the Avhole of six months during 


JUSTICE FOR IRELAND 


457 


which Dolan had agreed to serve Horgan. Then Dolan brought an 
action against Horgan for not paying him his wages for six months’ 
labour done — the wages being two guineas, 

Horgan at once, and with much candour, withdrew his charge 
against Dolan, that the latter had not remained with him for six 
months ; nor can I understand to this day why in the first place 
he swore to the charge, and why afterwards he withdrew it. But 
immediately advancing another charge against his late servant, he 
pleaded that he had given him a suit of clothes, which should be 
considered as a set-off against part of the money claimed. 

Now such a suit of clothes as poor Dolan had was never seen — 
I will not say merely on an English scarecrow, but on an Irish 
beggar. Strips of rags fell over the honest fellow’s great brawny 
chest, and the covering on his big brown legs hung on by a wonder. 
He held out his arms with a grim smile, and told his worship to 
look at the clothes ! The argument was irresistible : Horgan was 
ordered to pay fortliwith. He ought to have been made to pay 
another guinea for clothing a fellow-creature in rags so abominable. 

And now came a case of trespass, in which there was nothing 
interesting but the attitude of the poor woman who trespassed, and 
who meekly acknowledged the fact. She stated, however, that she 
only got over the wall as a short cut home ; but the wall was eight 
feet high, with a ditch too ; and I fear there were cabbages or 
potatoes in the enclosure. They fined her a sixpence, and she could 
not pay it, and went to gaol for three days — where she and her 
baby at any rate will get a meal. 

Last on the list which I took down came a man who will make 
the fortune of the London attorney that I hope is on his way hither : 
a rather old curly-headed man, with a sly smile perpetually lying on 
his face (the reader may give whatever interpretation he please to 
the “lying”). He comes before the court almost every fortnight, 
they say, with a complaint of one kind or other. His present 
charge was against a man for breaking into his courtyard, and 
wishing to take possession of the same. It appeared that he, the 
defendant, and anotlier lived in a row of houses : the plaintiffs house 
was, however, first built ; and as his agreement specified that the 
plot of ground behind his house should be his likewise, he chose to 
imagine that the plot of ground behind all the three houses was his, 
and built his turf-stack against his neighbour’s window. The magis- 
trates of course pronounced against this ingenious discoverer of 
wrongs, and he left the court still smiling and twisting round his 
little wicked eyes, and declaring solemnly that he would put in an 
appale. If one could have purchased a kicking at a moderate price 
off that fellow’s back, it would have been a pleasant little piece of 


458 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK 

self-indulgence, and I confess I longed to ask him the price of the 
article. 

And so, after a few more sindi great eases, the court rose, and I 
had leisure to make moral reflections, if so ininded : sighing to think 
that cruelty and falsehood, selfishness and rapacity, dwell not in 
crowds alone, but flourish all the world over — sweet flowers of 
human nature, they bloom in all climates and seasons, and are just 
as much at home in a hot-house in Thavies’ Inn as on a lone 
mountain or a rocky sea-coast in Ireland, where never a tree will 
grow ! 

We walked along this coast, after the judicial proceedings were 
over, to see the country, and the new road that the Board of Works 
is forming. Such a wilderness of rocks I never saw ! The district 
for miles is covered with huge stones, shining white in patches of 
green, with the Binabola on one side of the spectator, and the 
Atlantic running in and out of a thousand little bays on the other. 
The country is very hilly, or wavy rather, being a sort of ocean 
petrified ; and the engineers have hard work with these numerous 
abrupt little ascents and descents, which they equalise as best they 
may — by blasting, cutting, filling cavities, and levelling eminences. 
Some hundreds of men were employed at this work, busy with their 
hand-barrows, their picking and boring. Their pay is eighteenpence 
a day. 

There is little to see in the town of Roundstone, except a 
Presbyterian chapel in process of erection — that seems big enough 
to accommodate the Presbyterians of the county — and a sort of lay 
convent, being a community of brothers of tlie third order of Saint 
Francis. They are all artisans and workmen, taking no vows, but 
living together in common, and undergoing a certain religious 
l egimen, Tlieir work is said to be very good, and all are employed 
upon some labour or other. On the front of this unpretending 
little dwelling is an inscription with a great deal of pretence, stating 
that the establishment was founded with the approbation of “ his 
(Irace the Most Reverend the Lord Archbishop of Tuam.” 

The Most Reverend Dr. MacHale is a clergyman of great 
learning, talents, and honesty ; but his Grace the Lord Archbishop 
of Tuam strikes me as being no better than a mountebank ; and 
some day I hope even his own party will laugh this humbug down. 
It is bad enough to be awed by big titles at all ; but to respect 

sliam ones ! 0 stars and garters ! We shall have his Grace the 

Lord Chief Rabbi next, or his Lordship the Arch-Imaum ! 


CHAPTER XIX 


CLIFDEN TO IVESTPORT 


N leaving Ballinaliinch (with sincere regret, as any lonely 



tourist may imagine, who is called upon to quit the hospi- 


table friendliness of such a place and society), my way 
lay back to Clifden again, and thence through the Joyce country, 
by the Killery mountains, to Westport in Mayo. The road, 
amounting in all to four-and-forty Irish miles, is performed in cars, 
in different periods of time, according to your horse and your luck. 
Sometimes, both being bad, the traveller is two days on the road ; 
sometimes a dozen hours will suffice for the journey — which was 
the case with me, though I confess to having found the twelve 
hours long enough. After leaving Clifden, the friendly look of the 
country seemed to vanish ; and though picturesque enough, was a 
thought too wild and dismal for eyes accustomed to admire a hop- 
garden in Kent, or a view of rich meadows in Surrey, with a clump 
of trees and a comfortable village spire. “ Inglis,” the Guide-book 
says, “compares the scenes to the Norwegian Fiords.” Well, the 
Norwegian Fiords must, in this case, be very dismal sights; and I 
own that the wildness -of Hampstead Heath (with the imposing 
walls of “ Jack Straw’s Castle ” rising stern in the midst of the 
green wilderness) is more to my taste than the general views of 
yesterday. 

We skirted by lake after lake, lying lonely in the midst of lonely 
bog-lands, or bathing the sides of mountains robed in sombre rifle 
green. Two or three men, and as many huts, you see in the course 
of each mile perhaps, as toiling up the bleak hills, or jingling more 
rapidly down them, you pass through this sad region. In the midst of 
the wilderness a chapel stands here and there, solitary, on the hillside ; 
or a ruinous useless school-house, its pale walls contrasting with the 
general surrounding hue of sombre purple and green. But though 
the country looks more dismal than Connemara, it is clearly more 
fertile : we passed miles of ground that evidently wanted but little 
cultivation to make them profitable ; and along tlie mountain-sides, 
in many places, and over a great extent of Mr. Blake’s country 
especially, the hills were covered with a thick natural plantation, 


THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK 


4()0 

that may yield a little brushwood now, but might in fifty years’ 
time bring thousands of pounds of revenue to the descendants of the 
Blakes. This spectacle of a country going to waste is enough to 
make the cheerfullest landscape look dismal : it gives this wild 
district a woeful look indeed. The names of the lakes by which we 
came I noted down in a pocket-book as we passed along ; but the 
names were Irish, the car was rattling, and the only name readable 
in the catalogue is Letterfrack. 

The little hamlet of Leenane is at twenty miles’ distance from 
Clifden ; and to arrive at it, you skirt the mountain along one side 
of a vast pass, through which the ocean runs from Killery Bay, 
separating the mountains of Mayo from the mountains of Galway. 
Nothing can be more grand and gloomy than this pass ; and as for 
the character of the scenery, it must, as the Guide-book says, “ be 
seen to be understood.” Meanwhile, let the reader imagine huge 
dark mountains in their accustomed livery of purple and green, a dull 
grey sky above them, an estuary silver-bright below : in the water 
lies a fisherman’s boat or two ; a pair of seagulls undulating with 
the little waves of the water ; a pair of curlews wheeling overhead 
and piping on the wing; and on the hillside a jingling car, with 
a cockney in it, oppressed by and yet admiring all these things. 
Many a sketcher and tourist, as I found, has visited this picturesque 
spot : for the hostess of the inn had stories of English and American 
painters, and of illustrious book-writers, too, travelling in the ser- 
vice of our Lords of Paternoster Row. 

The landlord’s son of Clifden, a very intelligent young fellow, 
was here exchanged for a new carman in the person of a raw Irisher 
of twenty years of age, “ having ” little English, and dressed in that 
very pair of pantaloons which Humphrey Clinker was compelled to 
cast off some years since on account of the offence which they gave 
to Mrs. Tabitha Bramble. This fellow, emerging from among the 
boats, went off to a field to seek for the black horse, which the 
landlady assured me was quite fresh and had not been out all day, 
and would carry me to Westport in three hours. Meanwhile I was 
lodged in a neat little parlour, surveying the Mayo side of the water, 
with some cultivated fields and a show of a village at a spot where 
the estuary ends, and above them lodges and fine dark plantations 
climbing over the dark hills that lead to Lord Sligo’s seat of Delphi. 
Presently, with a curtsey, came a young woman who sold worsted 
socks at a shilling a pair, and whose portrait is here given. 

It required no small pains to entice this rustic beauty to stand 
while a sketch should be made of her. Nor did any compli- 
ments or cajolements, on my part or the landlady’s, bring about the 
matter : it was not until money was ofiered that the lovely creature 


AN EXACTING MODEL 


461 


consented. I offered (such is the ardour of the real artist) either to 
give her sixpence, or to purchase two pairs of her socks, if she 
would stand still for five minutes. On which she said she would 
prefer selling the socks. Then she stood still for a moment in the 
corner of the room ; then she turned her face towards the corner 
and the other part of her person towards the artist, and exclaimed 
in that attitude, “ I must have a shilling more.” Then I told 
her to go to the deuce. Then she made a proposition, involving 
the stockings and sixpence, which was similarly rejected; and. 



finally, the above splendid design was completed at the price first 
stated 

However, as we went off, this timid little dove barred the door 
for a moment, and said that “ I ought to give her another shilling ; 
that a gentleman would give her another shilling,” and so on. She 
might have trod the London streets for ten years and not have been 
more impudent and more greedy. 

By this time the famous fresh horse was produced, and the 
driver, by means of a wraprascal, had covered a great part of the 
rags of his lower garment. He carried a whip and a stick, the 
former lying across his knees ornamentally, the latter being for 
service ; and as his feet were directly under the horse’s tail, he had 


462 


THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK 


full command of the brute’s back, and belaboured it for six hours 
without ceasing. 

Wliat little English the fellow knew he uttered with a howl, 
roaring into my ear answers — which, for the most part, were wrong 
— to various questions i)ut to him. The lad’s voice was so liideous, 
that I asked him if he coidd sing; on which forthwith he began 
yelling a most horrible Irish ditty — of which he told me the title, 
tliat I have forgotten. He sang three stanzas, certainly keeping 
a kind of tune, and the latter lines of each verse were in rhyme ; 
but when I asked him the meaning of the song, he only roared out 
its Irish title. 

On questioning the driver further, it turned out that the horse, 
warranted fresh, had already performed a journey of eighteen miles 
that morning, and the consequence was that I had full leisure to 
survey the country through whicli we passed. There were more 
lakes, more mountains, more bog, and an excellent road through this 
lonely district, though few only of the human race enlivened it. At 
ten miles from Leenane, we stopped at a roadside hut, where the 
driver pulled out a bag of oats, and borrowing an iron pot from the 
good people, half filled it wdth corn, which the poor tired, galled, 
bewhipped black horse began eagerly to devour. The young 
charioteer himself hinted very broadly his desire for a glass of 
whisky, which was the only kind of refreshment that this remote 
house of entertainment supplied. 

In the various cabins I have entered, I have found talking a 
vain matter ; the people are suspicious of the stranger within their 
wretched gates, and are shy, sly, and silent. I have, commonly, 
only been able to get half-answers in reply to my questions, given 
in a manner that seemed plainly to intimate that the visit was 
unwelcome. In this rude hostel, however, the landlord was a little 
less reserved, offered a seat at the turf-fire, where a painter might 
have had a good subject for his skill. There was no chimney, but 
a hole in the roof, up which a small portion of the smoke ascended 
(the rest preferring an egress by the door, or else to remain in the 
apartment altogether) ; and this light from above lighted up as 
rude a set of figures as ever were seen. There were two brown 
women with black eyes and locks, the one knitting stockings on 
the floor, the other “racking” (with that natural comb Avhich five 
horny fingers supply) the elf-locks of a dirty urchin between her 
knees. An idle fellow was smoking his pipe by the fire ; and by 
his side sat a stranger, who had been made welcome to the shelter 
of the place — a sickly well-looking man, whom I mistook for a 
deserter at first, for he had evidently been a soldier. 

But there was nothing so romantic as desertion in his history. 


THE BAITING HOUSE 


4>63 


He had been in the Dragoons, but his mother had purchased his 
discharge : he was married, and had lived comfortably in Cork for 
some time, in the glass-blowing business. Trade failing at Cork, 
he had gone to Belfast to seek for work. There was no work at 
Belfast ; and he was so far on his road home again : sick, without 
a penny in the world, a hundred and fifty miles to travel, and a 
starving wife and children to receive him at his journey’s end. He 
had been thrown off a caravan that day, and had almost broken 
liis back in the fall. Here was a cheering story ! I wonder where 
he is now : how far has the poor starving lonely man advanced 
over that weary desolate road, that in good health, and with a 
horse to carry me, I thought it a penalty to cross ? What would 
one do under such circumstances, with solitude and hunger for 
present company, despair and starvation at the end of the vista? 
There are a score of lonely lakes along the road which he has to 
pass : would it be well to stoj) at one of them, and fling into it 
the wretched load of cares which that poor broken back has to 
carry? AVould the world he would light on then be worse for 
him than that lie is pining in now ? Heaven help us ! and on 
this very day, throughout the three kingdoms, there are a million 
such stories to be told ! Who dare doubt of heaven after that ? 
of a place where there is at last a welcome to the heart-strickcR 
prodigal and a happy home to tlie wretched ? 

The crumbs of oats which fell from the mouth of the feasting 
Dives of a horse were battled for outside the door by 'a dozen 
Lazaruses in the shape of fowls ; and a lanky young pig, who had 
been grunting in an old chest in the cabin, or in a miserable recess 
of huddled rags and straw which formed the couch of the family, 
presently came out and drove the poultry away, picking up, with 
great accuracy, the solitary grains lying about, and more than once 
trying to shove his snout into the corn-pot, and share with the 
wretched old galled horse. Whether it was that he was refreshed 
by his meal, or that the car-boy was invigorated by his glass of 
whisky, or inflamed by the sight of eighteenpence — which muni- 
ficent sum was tendered to the soldier— I don’t know ; but the 
remaining eight miles of the journey were got over in much quicker 
time, although the road was exceedingly bad and hilly for the 
greatest part of the way to Westport. However, by running up 
the hills at the pony’s side, the animal, fired with emulation, trotted 
up them too — descending them with the proverbial surefootedness 
of his race, the car and he bouncing over the rocks and stones at 
the rate of at least four Irish miles an hour. 

At about five miles from Westport the cultivation became much 
more frequent. There were plantations upon the hills, yellow corn 


THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK 


4 () 1 . 

and potatoes in plenty in the fields, and houses thickly scattered. 
We had the satisfaction, too, of knowing that future tourists will 
have an excellent road to travel over in this district : for by the 
side of the old road, which runs up and down a hundred little rocky 
steeps, according to the ancient plan, you see a new one running 
for several miles, — the latter way being conducted, not over the 
hills, but around them, and, considering the circumstances of the 
country, extremely broad and even. The car-boy presently yelled 
out “ Reek, Reek ! ” with a shriek perfectly appalling. This howl 
was to signify that we were in sight of that famous conical mountain 
so named, and from which St. Patrick, after inveigling thither all 
the venomous reptiles in Ireland, precipitated the whole noisome 
race into Clew Bay. The road also for several miles was covered 
with people, who were flocking in hundreds from Westport market, 
in cars and carts, on horseback single and double, and on foot. 

And presently, from an eminence, I caught sight not only of 
a fine view, but of the most beautiful view I ever saw in the world, 
I think ; and to enjoy the splendour of which I would travel a 
hundred miles in that car with that very horse and driver. The 
sun was just about to set, and the country round about and to 
the east was almost in twilight. The mountains were tumbled 
about in a thousand fantastic ways, and swarming with people. 
Trees, cornfields, cottages, made the scene indescribably cheerfiil; 
noble woods stretclied towards the sea, and abutting on them, 
between two highlands, lay the smoking town. Hard by was a 
large Gothic building — it is but a poor-house ; but it looked like 
a grand castle in the grey evening. But the Bay — and the Reek 
which sweeps down to the sea — and a hundred islands in it, were 
dressed up in gold and purple and crimson, with the whole cloudy 
west in a flame. Wonderful, wonderful ! . . . The valleys in the 
road to Leenane have lost all glimpses of the sun ere this ; and 
I suppose there is not a soul to be seen in the black landscape, or 
by the shores of the ghastly lakes, where the poor glass-blower from 
the whisky-shop is faintly travelling now. 


CHAPTER XX 


IVESTPORT 

N ature has done much for this pretty town of Westport ; 
and after Nature, the traveller ought to be thankful to Lord 
Sligo, who has done a great deal too. In the first place, he 
has established one of the prettiest, comfortablest inns in Ireland, in 
the best part of his little town, stocking the cellars with good wines, 
filling the house with neat furniture, and lending, it is said, the 
whole to a landlord gratis, on condition that he should keep the 
house warm, and furnisli the larder, and entertain the traveller. 
Secondly, Lord Sligo has given up, for the use of the townspeople, 
a beautiful little pleasure-ground about his house. “You may 
depand upon it,” said a Scotchman at the inn, “ tliat they’ve right 
of pathway through the groonds, and that the marquess couldn’t 
shut them oot.” Which is a pretty fair specimen of charity in this 
world — this kind world, that is always ready to encourage, and 
applaud good actions, and find good motives for the same. I 
wonder how much would induce that Scotchman to allow poor 
people to walk in his park, if he had one ! 

In the midst of this pleasure-ground, and surrounded by a 
thousand fine trees, dressed up in all sorts of verdure, stands a 
jn-etty little church ; paths through the wood lead pleasantly down 
to the bay ; and, as we walked down to it on the day after our 
arrival, one of the green fields was suddenly black ‘with rooks, 
making a huge cawing and clanging as they settled down to feed. 
The house, a handsome massive structure, must command noble 
views of the bay, over which all the colours of Titian were spread 
as the sun set behind its purple islands. 

Printer’s ink will not give these wonderful hues ; and the reader 
will make his picture at his leisure. That conical mountain to the 
left is Croaghpatrick : it is clothed in the most magnificent violet 
colour, and a couple of round clouds were exploding as it were from 
the summit, that part of tliem towards the sea liglrted up with the 
most delicate gold and rose colour. In the centre is the Clare 
island, of which the edges were bright cobalt, whilst the middle 
was lighted up with a brilliant scarlet tinge, such as I would have 


THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK 


46f) 

laughed at in a i)icture, never having seen in nature before, but 
looked at now witli wonder and i)leasure until the hue disappeared 
as the sun went away. The islands in the bay (which was of a 
gold colour) looked like so many dolphins and whales basking 
there. The rich park-woods stretched down to the shore ; and the 
immediate foreground consisted of a yellow cornfield, wliereon stood 
innumerable shocks of corn, casting immense long purple shadows 
over the stubble. The farmer, with some little ones about him, 

was superintending his reapers ; and I heard him say to a little 

girl, “ Norey, I love you the best of all my children ! ” Presently, 

one of the reapers coming up, says, “ It’s always the custom in 

these parts to ask strange gentlemen to give something to drink 
the first day of reaping; and we’d like to drink your honour’s 
health in a bowl of coffee.” 0 fortunatos nimiuin ! The cockney 
takes out sixpence, and thinks that he never passed such a pleasant 
lialf-hour in all his life as in that cornfield, looking at that wonder- 
ful bay. 

A car which I had ordered presently joined me from the town, 
and going down a green lane very like England, and across a cause- 
way near a building where the carman proposed to show me “me 
Lard’s caffin that he brought from Rome, and a mighty big caffin 
entirely,” we came close upon the water and the port. There was 
a long handsome pier (which, no doubt, remains at this present 
minute), and one solitary cutter lying alongside it ; which may or 
may not be tliere now. Tliere were about three boats lying near 
the cutter, and six sailors, with long shadows, lolling about the pier. 
As for the warehouses, they are enormous ; and might accommodate, 
I should think, not only the trade of Westport, but of Manchester 
too. There are huge streets of these houses, ten stories high, with 
cranes, owners’ names, &c., marked Wine Stores, Flour Stores, 
Bonded Tobacco Warehouses, and so forth. The six sailors that 
were singing on the pier no doubt are each admirals of as many 
fleets of a hundred sail that bring wines and tobacco from all 
quarters of the world to fill these enormous warehouses. These 
dismal mausoleums, as vast as pyramids, are the places where the 
dead trade of Westport lies buried — a trade that, in its lifetime, 
jirobably was about as big as a mouse. Nor is this the first nor 
the hundredth place to be seen in this country, which sanguine 
builders have erected to accommodate an imaginary commerce. 
Mill-owners over-mill themselves, merchants over-warehouse them- 
selves, squires over-castle themselves, little tradesmen about Dublin 
and the cities over-villa and over-gig themselves, and we hear 
sad tales about hereditary bondage and the accursed tyranny of 
England. 


CLEW BAY 


467 


Passing out of tins dreary pseudo-commercial port, the road lay 
along the beautiful shores of Clew Bay, adorned witli many a rickety 
villa and pleasure-house, from the cracked windows of which may 
be seen one of the noblest views in the world. One of the villas 
the guide pointed out with peculiar exultation : it is called by a 
grand name — Waterloo Park, and has a lodge, and a gate, and a 
field of a couple of acres, and belongs to a young gentleman who, 
being able to write Waterloo Park on his card, succeeded in carrying 
off a young London heiress with a hundred thousand })ounds. The 
young couple had just arrived, and one of them must have been 
rather astonished, no doubt, at the “park.” But what will not 
love do*? With love and a hundred thousand pounds, a cottage 
may be made to look like a castle, and a park of two acres may be 
brouglit to extend for a mile. The night began now to fall, 
wrapping up in a sober grey livery the bay and mountains, which 
had just been so gorgeous in sunset; and we turned our backs 
jiresently upon the bay, and the villas with the cracked windows, 
and scaling a road of perpetual ups and downs, went back to West- 
port. On the way was a pretty cemetery, lying on each side of 
the road, with a ruined chapel for the ornament of one division, a 
holy well for the other. In the holy Avell lives a sacred trout, 
whom sick people come to consult, and Avho operates great cures in 
the neighbourhood. If the patient see the trout floating on his 
back, he dies ; if on his belly, he lives ; or vice versd. The little 
spot is old, ivy-grown, and picturesque, and I can’t fancy a better 
place for a pilgrim to kneel and say his beads at. 

But considering the whole country goes to mass, and that the 
priests can govern it as they will, teaching what shall be believed 
and what shall be not credited, would it not be well for their rever- 
ences, in the year eighteen hundred and forty-two, to discourage 
these absurd lies and superstitions, and teach some simple truths to 
their flock? Leave such figments to magazine-writers and ballad- 
makers ; but, corhleiL ! it makes one indignant to think that ]»eople 
in the United Kingdom, where a press is at work, and good 
sense is abroad, and clergymen are eager to educate the people, 
should countenance such savage superstitions and silly grovelling 
heathenisms. 

The chapel is before the inn wiiere I resided, and on Sunday, 
from a very early hour, the side of the street was thronged with 
worshippers, who came to attend the various services. Nor are 
the Catholics the only devout people of this remote district. There 
is a large Presbyterian church very well attended, as was the 
Established Church service in the pretty church in the park. 
There was no organ, but the clerk and a choir of children sang 


468 


THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK 


hymns sweetly and truly; and a charity sermon being preached 
for the benefit of the diocesan schools, I saw many pound-notes 
in the i)late, showing that the Protestants here were as ardent as 
their Roman Catholic brethren. The sermon was extempore, as 
usual, according to the prevailing taste here. The preacher by 
putting aside his sermon-book, may gain in warmth, which we 
don’t want, but lose in reason, which we do. If I were Defender 
of the Faith, I would issue an order to all priests and deacons to 
take to the book again ; weighing well, before they uttered it, every 
word they proposed to say upon so great a subject as that of 
religion; and mistrusting that dangerous facility given by active 
jaws and a hot imagination. Reverend divines have adopted this 
habit, and keep us for an hour listening to what might well be told 
in ten minutes. They are wondrously fluent, considering all things ; 
and though I have heard many a sentence begun whereof the 
speaker did not evidently know the conclusion, yet, somehow or 
other, he has always managed to get through the paragraph without 
any hiatus, except perhaps in the sense. And as far as I can 
remark, it is not calm, plain, downright preachers who preserve the 
extemporaneous system for the most part, but pompous orators 
indulging in all the cheap graces of rhetoric — exaggerating words 
and feelings to make effect, and dealing in pious caricature. Church- 
goers become excited by tliis loud talk and captivating manner, and 
can’t go back afterwards to a sober discourse read out of a grave old 
sermon-book, appealing to the reason and the gentle feelings, instead 
of to the passions and the imagination. Beware of too much talk, 
0 parsons ! If a man is to give an account of every idle word he 
utters, for what a number of such loud nothings, windy emphatic 
tropes and metaphors, spoken, not for God’s glory, but the preacher’s, 
will many a cushion-thumper have to answer ! And this rebuke 
may properly find a place here, because the clergyman by whose 
discourse it was elicited is not of the eloquent dramatic sort, but 
a gentleman, it is said, remarkable for old-fashioned learning and 
quiet habits that do not seem to be to the taste of the many 
boisterous young clergy of the present day. 

The Catholic chapel was built before their graces the most 
reverend lord archbishops came into fashion. It is large and gloomy, 
with one or two attempts at ornament by way of pictures at the 
altars, and a good inscription warning the incomer, in a few bold 
words, of the sa(U'edness of the place he stands in. Bare feet bore 
away thousands of people who came to pray there ; there were 
numbers of smart equipages for the richer Protestant congregation. 
Strolling about the town in the balmy summer evening, I heard the 
sweet potee of a hymn from the people in the Presbyterian praying- 


A RUSTIC BEAUTY 469 

house. Indeed, the country is full of piety, and a warm, sincere, 
undoubting devotion. 

On week-days the street before tlie chapel is scarcely less crowded 
than on the Sabbath : but it is witli women and children merely ; 
for a stream bordered with lime-trees runs pleasantly down the 
street, and hitlier come innumerable girls to wash, while the chil- 
dren make dirt-pies and look on. Wilkie was here some years since, 
and the place affords a great deal of amusement to the painter of 
character. Sketching, tant hien que mal, the bridge and the trees, 
and some of the nymphs engaged in the stream, the writer became 
an object of no small attention ; and at least a score of dirty brats 
left their dirt-pies to look on, the bare-legged washing-girls grinning 
from the water. 

One, a regular rustic beauty, whose face and figure would have 
made the fortune of a frontispiece, seemed particularly amused and 
agacante ; and I walked round to get a drawing of her fresh jolly 
face : but directly I came near she pulled her gown over her head, 
and resolutely turned her back ; and, as that part of her person did 
not seem to differ in character from the backs of the rest of Europe, 
there is no need of taking its likeness. 


CHAPTER XXI 


THE PATTERN AT CROAGHPATRICK 
N the Pattern day, however, the washerwomen and children 



had all disappeared — nay, the stream, too, seemed to be 


gone out of town. There was a report current, also, that 
on the occasion of the Pattern, six hundred teetotallers had sworn 
to revolt ; and I fear that it was the hope of witnessing this awful 
rebellion which induced me to stay a couple of days at Westport. 
The Pattern was commenced on the Sunday, and the priests, going 
up to the mountain, took care that there should be no sports nor 
dancing on that day ; but that the people should only content them- 
selves with the performance of what are called religious duties. 
Religious duties ! Heaven help us ! If these reverend gentlemen 
were worshippers of Moloch or Baal, or any deity whose honour 
demanded bloodshed, and savage rites, and degradation, and torture, 
one might fancy them encouraging the people to the disgusting 
penances the poor things here perform. But it’s too hard to think 
that in our days any priests of any religion should be found super- 
intending such a hideous series of self-sacrifices as are, it appears, 
performed on this hill. 

A friend who ascended the hill brought down the following 
account of it. The ascent is a very steep and hard one, he 
says; but it was performed in company of thousands of people 
who were making their way barefoot to the several “ stations ” 
upon the hill. 

“ The first station consists of one heap of stones, round which 
they must walk seven times, casting a stone on the lieap each time, 
and before and after every stone’s throw saying a prayer. 

“ The second station is on the top of the mountain. Here there 
is a great altar — a shapeless heap of stones. Tlie poor wretches 
crawl on their knees into this place, say fifteen prayers, and after 
going round the entire top of the mountain fifteen times, say fifteen 
prayers again. 

“ The third station is near the bottom of the mountain at the 
farther side from Westport. It consists of three heaps. The 


THE PATTERN 


471 


penitents must go seven times round these collectively, and seven 
times afterwards round each individually, saying a prayer before 
and after each progress.” 

My informant describes the people as coming away from this 
“ frightful exhibition suffering severe pain, wounded and bleeding in 
the knees and feet, and some of the women shrieking with the pain 
of their wounds.” Fancy thousands of these bent upon their work, 
and priests standing by to encourage them ! — For shame, for shame ! 
If all the popes, cardinals, bishops, hermits, priests, and deacons 
that ever lived were to come forward and preach this as a truth — 
that to please God you must macerate your body, that the sight of 
your agonies is welcome to Him, and that your blood, groans, and 
degradation find favour in His eyes, I would not believe them. 
Better have over a company of Fakeers at once, and set the 
Suttee going. 

Of these tortures, however, I had not the fortune to witness a 
sight: for going towards the mountain for the first four miles, the 
only conveyance I could find was half the pony of an honest sailor, 
who said, when applied to, “ I tell you what I do wid you : I give 
you a spell about.” But, as it turned out we were going difterent 
ways, this help was but a small one. A car with a spare seat, 
however (there were hundreds of others quite full, and scores of 
rattling country-carts covered with people, and thousands of bare 
legs trudging along the road) — a car with a spare seat passed by at 
two miles from the Pattern, and that just in time to get comfortably 
wet through on arriving tliere. The whole mountain was enveloped 
in mist; and we could nowhere see thirty yards before us. The 
women walked forward, with their gowns over their heads ; the 
n)en sauntered on in the rain, with the utmost indifference to it. 
Tlie car presently came to a cottage, the court in front of which 
was black with two hundred horses, and where as many drivers 
were jangling and bawling; and here we were told to descend. 
You had to go over a wall and across a brook, and behold the 
Pattern. 

Tlie pleasures of the poor people — for after the business on the 
mountain came the dancing and love-making at its foot — were 
woefully spoiled by the rain, which rendered dancing on the grass 
impossible ; nor were the tents big enough for that exercise. Indeed, 
the whole sight was as dismal and half-savage a one as I have seen. 
There may have been fifty of these tents squatted round a plain of 
the most brilliant green grass, behind whicli the mist-curtains seemed 
to rise immediately ; for you could not even see the mountain-side 
beyond them. Here was a great crowd of men and women, all 


472 


THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK 


ugly, as the fortune of the day would have it (for the sagacious 
reader has, no doubt, remarked that there are ugly and pretty days in 
life). Stalls were spread about, whereof the owners were shrieking 
out the praises of their wares — great coarse damp-looking bannocks 
of bread for the most part, or, mayhap, a dirty collection of pigs’-feet 
and such refreshments. Several of the booths professed to belong 
to “confectioners” from Westport or Castlebar, the confectionery 
consisting of huge biscuits and doubtful-looking ginger-beer — ginger- 
ale or gingeretta it is called in this country, by a fanciful people who 
love the finest titles. Add to these, caldrons containing water for 
“ tay ” at the doors of the booths, other pots full of masses of pale 
legs of mutton (the owner “prodding,” every now and then, fora 
bit, and holding it up and asking the passenger to buy). In the 
booths it was impossible to stand upright, or to see much, on 
account of smoke. Men and women were crowded in these rude 
tents, huddled together, and disappearing in the darkness. Owners 
came bustling out to replenisli the empty water-jugs : and landladies 
stood outside in the rain calling strenuously upon all passers-by to 
enter. 

Meanwhile, high up on the invisible mountain, the people were 
dragging their bleeding knees from altar to altar, flinging stones, and 
muttering some endless litanies, with tlie priests standing by. I 
think I was not sorry that the rain, and the care of my precious 
health, prevented me from mounting a severe hill to witness a sight 
that could only have caused one to be shocked and ashamed that 
servants of God should encourage it. The road home was very 
pleasant ; everybody was wet through, but everybody was happy, 
and by some miracle we were seven on the car. There was the 
honest Englishman in the military cap, who sang “ The sea, tlie 
hopen sea’s my ’ome,” although not any one of the company called 
upon him for that air. Then the music was taken up by a good- 
natured lass from Castlebar; then the Englishman again, “With 
burnished brand and musketoon ; ” and there was no end of pushing, 
pinching, squeezing, and laughing. The Englishman, especially, 
had a favourite yell, with which he saluted and astonished all 
cottagers, passengers, cars, that we met or overtook. Presently 
came prancing by two dandies, who were especially frightened by 
the noise. “ Thim’s two tailors from Westport,” said the carman, 
grinning with all his might. “ Come, gat out of the way there, gat 
along ! ” piped a small English voice from above somewhere. I 
looked up, and saw a little creature perched on the top of a tandem, 
which he was driving with the most knowing air — a dreadful young 
hero, with a white hat, and a white face, and a blue bird’s-eye 
neckcloth. He was five feet high, if an inch, an ensign, and sixteen ; 


RETURNING FROM THE PATTERN 473 

and it was a great comfort to think, in case of danger or riot, that 
one of his years and personal strength was at hand to give help. 

“Thim’s the afficers,” said the carman, as the tandem wheeled 
by, a small groom quivering on behind — and the carman spoke with 
the greatest respect this time. Two days before, on arriving at 
AVestport, I had seen the same equipage at the door of the inn — 
where for a moment there happened to be no waiter to receive me. 
So, shouldering a carpet-bag, I walked into the inn-hall, and asked 
a gentleman standing there where was the coffee-room ? It was the 
military tandem-driving youth, who with much grace looked up in 
my face, and said calmly, “ I daivnt hiawT I believe the little 
creature had just been dining in the very room — and so present my 
best compliments to him. 

The Guide-book will inform the traveller of many a beautiful 
spot which lies in the neighbourhood of Westport, and which I had 
not the time to visit ; but I must not take leave of the excellent 
little inn without speaking once more of its extreme comfort ; nor 
of the place itself, without another parting word regarding its beauty. 
It forms an event in one’s life to have seen that place, so beautiful 
is it, and so unlike all other beauties that I know of. Were such 
beauties lying upon English shores it would be a world’s wonder : 
perhaps, if it were on the Mediterranean, or the Baltic, English 
travellers would flock to it by hundreds ; why not come and see it 
in Ireland % Remote as the spot is, Westport is only two days’ 
journey from London now, and lies in a country far more strange to 
most travellers than France or Germany can be. 


CHAPTER XXII 


FROM WESTPORT TO B ALLIN ASLOE 

T he mail-coach took us next day by Castlebar and Tuam to 
Ballinasloe, a journey of near eighty miles. The country is 
interspersed with innumerable seats belonging to the Blakes, 
the Browns, and the Lynches ; and we passed many large domains 
belonging to bankrupt lords and fugitive squires, with fine lodges 
adorned with moss and battered windows, and parks where, if the 
grass was growing on the roads, on the other hand the trees had 
been weeded out of the grass. About these seats and their owners 
the guard — an honest shrewd fellow — had all the gossip to tell. 
Tlie jolly guard himself was a ruin, it turned out : he told me his 
grandfather was a man of large property ; his father, he said, kept 
a pack of hounds, and had spent everything by the time he, the 
guard, was sixteen : so the lad made interest to get a mail-car to 
drive, whence he had been promoted to the guard’s seat, and now 
for forty years had occujjied it, travelling eighty miles, and earning 
seven-and-twopence every day of his life. He had been once ill, he 
said, for three days ; and if a man may be judged by ten hours’ 
talk with him, there were few more shrewd, resolute, simple-minded 
men to be found on the outside of any coaches or the inside of any 
houses in Ireland. 

During the first five-and-twenty miles of the journey, — for the 
day was very sunny and bright, — Croaghpatrick kept us company ; 
and, seated with your back to the horses, you could see, “ on the 
left, that vast aggregation of mountains which stretches southwards 
to tlie Bay of Galway ; on the right, that gigantic assemblage 
which sweeps in circular outline northward to Killule.” Some- 
where amongst those hills the great John Tuam was born, whose 
mansion and cathedral are to be seen in Tuam town, but whose 
fame is spread everywhere. To arrive at Castlebar, we go over 
the undulating valley which lies between the mountains of Joyce 
country and Erris ; and the first object which you see on entering 
the town is a stately Gothic castle that stands at a short distance 
from it. 

On the gate of the stately Gothic castle was written an inscrip- 


CASTLEBAR 


475 


tion not very hospitable : “ without beware, within amend ; ” 
— ^just beneath which is an iron crane of neat construction. The 
castle is the county gaol, and the iron crane is the gallows of the 
district. The town seems neat and lively ; there is a fine church, a 
grand barracks (celebrated as the residence of the young fellow with 
the bird’s-eye neckcloth), a club, and a Whig and Tory newspaper. 
The road hence to Tuam is very pretty and lively, from the number 
of country seats along the way, giving comfortable shelter to more 
Blakes, Browns, and Lynches. 

In the cottages, the inhabitants looked healthy and rosy in 
their rags, and the cots themselves in the sunshine almost com- 
fortable. After a couple of months in the country, the stranger’s 
eye grows somewhat accustomed to the rags ; they do not frighten 
him as at first ; the people who wear them look for the most part 
healthy enough : especially the small children — those who can 
scarcely totter, and are sitting shading their eyes at the door, and 
leaving the unfinished dirt-pie to shout as the coach passes by — are 
as healthy a looking race as one will often see. Nor can any one 
pass through the land without being touched by the extreme love 
of children among the people : they swarm everywhere, and the 
whole country rings with cries of affection towards the children, with 
the songs of young ragged nurses dandling babies on their knees, and 
warnings of mothers to Patsey to come out of the mud, or Norey to 
get off the pig’s back. 

At Tuam the coach stopped exactly for fourteen minutes and a 
half, during which tipie those who wished might dine : but instead, I 
had the pleasure of inspecting a very mouldy dirty town, and made 
my way to the Catholic cathedral — a very handsome edifice indeed ; 
handsome without and within, and of the Gothic sort. Over the 
door is a huge coat of arms surmounted by a cardinal’s hat— the 
arms of the see, no doubt, quartered with John Tuam’s own patri- 
monial coat ; and that was a frieze coat, from all accounts, passably 
ragged at the elbows. Well, he must be a poor wag who could 
sneer at an old coat, because it was old and poor ; but if a man 
changes it for a tawdry gimcrack suit bedizened with twopenny 
tinsel, and struts about calling himself his Grace and my Lord, 
when may we laugh if not then”? There is something simple in 
the way in which these good people belord their clergymen, and 
respect titles real or sham. Take any Dublin paper, — a couple of 
columns of it are sure to be filled with movements of the small 
great men of the world. Accounts from Derrynane state that the 
“ Right Honourable the Lord Mayor is in good health — his Lordsliip 
went out vdth his beagles yesterday;” or “his Grace the Most 
Reverend the Lord Archbishop of Ballywhack, assisted by the 


476 


THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK 


Right Reverend the Lord Bishops of Trincomalee and Hipj)opotamns, 
assisted,” &c. ; or “ Colonel Tims, of Castle Tims, and lady, have 
quitted tlie ‘ Shelburne Hotel,’ with a party for Kilballybather- 
shins, where the august * party propose to enjoy a few days’ 
shrimp-fishing,” — and so on. Our people are not witty and keen 
of perceiving the ridiculous, like the Irish ; but the bluntness and 
honesty of the English have well-nigh kicked the fashionable hum- 
bug down ; and except perhaps among footmen and about Baker 
Street, this curiosity about the aristocracy is wearing fast away. 
Have the Irish so much reason to respect their lords that they 
shoidd so chronicle all their movements ; and not only admire real 
lords, but make sham ones of their own to admire them ? 

There is no object of special mark upon the road from Tuam to 
Ballinasloe — the country being flat for the most part, and the noble 
Galway and Mayo mountains having disappeared at length — until 
you come to a glimpse of old England in the pretty village of 
Ahascragh. An old oak-tree grows in the neat street, the houses 
are as trim and white as eye can desire, and about the church and 
the town are handsome plantations, forming on the whole such a 
picture of comfort and plenty as is rarely to be seen in the part of 
Ireland I have traversed. All these wonders have been vTought by 
the activity of an excellent resident agent. There was a country- 
man on the coach deploring that, through family circumstances, this 
gentleman should have been dispossessed of his agency, and declar- 
ing that the village had already begun to deteriorate in consequence. 
The marks of such decay were not, however, visible — at least to a 
new-comer ; and, being reminded of it, I indulged in many patriotic 
longings for England : as every Englishman does when he is travel- 
ling out of the country which he is always so willing to quit. 

That a place should instantly begin to deteriorate because a 
certain individual was removed from it — that cottagers should 
become thriftless, and houses dirty, and house-windows cracked, — 
all these are points which public economists may ruminate over, 
and can’t fail to give the carelessest traveller much matter for 
painful reflection. Hoav is it that the presence of one man more or 
less should affect a set of people come to years of manhood, and 
knowing that they have their duty to do? Why should a man at 
Ahascragh let his home go to ruin and stuff his windows with 
ragged breeches instead of glass, because Mr. Smith is agent in 
place of Mr. Jones? Is he a child, that won’t work unless the 
schoolmaster be at hand? or are we to suppose, with the “Repealers,” 
that the cause of all this degradation and misery is the intolerable 

* This epithet is applied to the party of a Colonel somebody, in a Dublin 
paper. 


ENGLISH TYRANNY 


477 


tyranny of the sister country, and the pain which poor Ireland has 
been made to endure ? This is very well at the Corn Exchange, 
and among patriots after dinner; but, after all, granting the 
grievance of the franchise (though it may not be unfair to presume 
that a man who has not strength of mind enough to mend his own 
breeches or his own windows will always be the tool of one party or 
another), there is no Inquisition set up in the country : the law 
tries to defend the people as much as they will allow ; the odious 
tithe has even been whisked olf from their shoulders to the land- 
lords’ ; they may live pretty much as they like. Is it not too 
monstrous to howl about English tyranny and suffering Ireland, and 
call for a Stephen’s Green Parliament to make the country quiet 
and the people industrious ? The people are not politically worse 
treated than their neighbours in England. The priests and the 
landlords, if they chose to co-operate, might do more for the country 
now than any kings or laws could. What you want here is not a 
Catholic or Protestant party, but an Irish party. 

In the midst of these reflections, and by what the reader will 
doubtless think a blessed interruption, we came in sight of the toAvn 
of Ballinasloe and its “gash-lamps,” which a fellow-passenger did 
not fail to point out with admiration. The road-menders, however, 
did not appear to think that light was by any means necessary : for, 
having been occupied, in the morning, in digging a fine hole upon 
the highway, previous to some alterations to be ettected there, they 
liad left their work at sundown, without any lamp to warn coming 
travellers of the hole — which we only escaped by a wonder. The 
papers have much such another story. In the Galway and 
Ballinasloe coach a horse on the road suddenly fell down and died ; 
the coachman drove his coach unicorn-fashion into town ; and, as 
for the dead horse, of course he left it on the road at the place 
where it fell, and where another coach coming up was upset over it, 
bones broken, passengers maimed, coach smashed. By heavens ! 
the tyranny of England is unendurable ; and I have no doubt it had 
a hand in upsetting that coach. 


CHAPTER XXIII 


BALLINASLOE TO DUBLIN 


URING the cattle-fair the celebrated town of Ballinasloe is 



thronged with farmers from all parts of the kingdom — the 


cattle being picturesquely exhibited in the ])ark of the noble 
proprietor of the town, Lord Clancarty. As it was not fair-time the 
town did not seem particularly busy, nor was there much to remark 
in it, except a church, and a magnificent lunatic asylum, that lies 
outside the town on the Dublin road, and is as handsome and 
stately as a palace. I think the beggars were more plenteous and 
more loathsome here than almost anywhere. To one hideous 
wretch I was obliged to give money to go away, which he did for a 
moment, only to obtrude his horrible face directly afterwards half 
eaten away with disease. “A penny for the sake of poor little 
Mery,” said another woman, who had a baby sleeping on her 
withered breast ; and how can any one who has a little Mery at 
home resist such an appeal 1 “ Pity the poor blind man ! ” roared 

a respectably dressed grenadier of a fellow. I told him to go to 
the gentleman with a red neckcloth and fur cap (a young buck 
from Trinity College) — to whom the blind man with much sim- 
plicity immediately stepped over; and as for the rest of the 
beggars, what pen or pencil could describe their hideous leering 
flattery, their cringing swindling humour ! 

The inn, like the town, being made to accommodate the 
periodical crowds of visitors who attended the fair, presented in 
tlieir absence rather a faded and desolate look ; and in spite of the 
live-stock for which the place is famous, the only portion of their 
produce which I could get to my share, after twelve hours’ fasting 
and an hour’s bell-ringing and scolding, was one very lean mutton- 
chop and one very small damp kidney, brought in by an old totter- 
ing waiter to a table spread in a huge black coffee-room, dimly 
lighted by one little jet of gas. 

As this only served very faintly to light up the above banquet, 
the waiter, upon remonstrance, proceeded to light the other bee ; 
but the lamp was sulky, and upon this attempt to force it, as it 
were, refused to act altogether, and went out. The big room was 


A GOOD OLD IRISH GENTLEMAN 479 

then accommodated with a couple of yellow mutton-candles. There 
was a neat, handsome, correct young English officer warming his 
slippers at the fire, and opposite him sat a worthy gentleman, with 
a glass of “mingled materials,” discoursing to him in a very 
friendly and confidential way. 

As I don’t know the gentleman’s name, and as it is not at all 
improbable, from the situation in which he was, that he has quite 
forgotten the night’s conversation, I hope there will be no breach of 
confidence in recalling some part of it. The speaker was dressed in 
deep black — worn, however, with that degage air peculiar to the 
votaries of Bacchus, or that nameless god, offspring of Bacchus and 
Ceres, who may have invented the noble liquor called whisky. It 
was fine to see the easy folds in which his neckcloth confined a 
shirt-collar moist with the generous drops that trickled from the 
chin above,— its little percentage upon the punch. There was a 
fine dashing black-satin waistcoat that called for its share, and 
generously disdained to be buttoned. I think this is the only 
specimen I have seen yet of the personage still so frequently de- 
scribed in the Irish novels — the careless drinking squire — the Irish 
Will Whimble. 

“Sir,” says he, “as I was telling you before this gentleman 
'came in (from Westport, I preshume, sir, by the main and my 
service to you !), the butchers in Tchume (Tuam) — where I live, 
and shall be happy to see you and give you a shakedown, a cut of 
mutton, and the use of as good a brace of pointers as ever you shot 
over — the butchers say to me, whenever I look in at their shops 
and ask for a joint of meat — -they say ; ‘ Take down that quarther 
o’ mutton, boy; it’s no use weighing it for Mr. Bodkin. He 
can tell with an eye what’s the weight of it to an ounce ! ’ And 
so, sir, I can ; and I’d make a bet to go into any market in Dublin, 
Tchume, Ballinasloe, where you please, and just by looking at tlie 
meat decide its weight.” 

At the pause, during which the gentleman here designated 
Bodkin drank off his “materials,” the young officer said gravely 
that this was a very rare and valuable accomplishment, and thanked 
him for the invitation to Tchume. 

The honest gentleman proceeded with his personal memoirs ; 
and (with a charming modesty that authenticated his tale, while it 
interested his hearers for the teller) he called for a fresh tumbler, 
and began discoursing about horses. “Them I don’t know,” says 
he, confessing the fact at once; “or, if I do, I’ve been always so 
unlucky with them that it’s as good as if I didn’t. 

“ To give you an idea of my ill fortune : Me brother-’n-law Burke 
once sent me three colts of his to sell at this very fair of Ballinasloe, 


480 


THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK 


and for all I could do I could only get a bid for one of ’em, and 
sold her for sixteen pounds. And d’ye know what tliat mare was, 
sir?” says Mr. Bodkin, giving a thump that made the spoon jump 
out of the punch-glass for fright. “ D’ye know who she was ? she 
was Water- Wagtail, sir, — Water-Wagtail ! She Avon fourteen 
cups and plates in Ireland before she Avent to Liverpool ; and you 
know Avhat she did there ? ” (We said, “ Oh ! of course.”) “ Well, 
sir, the man who bought her from me sold her for four hunder’ 
guineas ; and in England she fetched eight hunder’ pounds. 

“Another of them very horses, gentlemen (Tim, some hot 
wather — screeching hot, you divil — and a sthroke of the limin) 
— another of them horses that I Avas refused fifteen pound for, me 
brother-in-law sould to Sir Rufford Bufford for a hunder’-and-fifty 
guineas. Wasn’t that luck? 

“Well, sir. Sir Rufford gives Burke his bill at six months, and 
don’t pay it Avhen it come jue. A pretty pickle Tom Burke Avas 
in, as I leave ye to fancy, for he’d paid away the bill, Avhich he 
thought as good as goold ; and sure it ought to be, for Sir Rufford 
had come of age since the bill was draAvn, and before it was due, 
and, as I needn’t tell you, had slipped into a very handsome 
property. 

“On the protest of the bill, Burke goes in a fury to Gresham’s ' 
in Sackville Street, Avhere the Baronet was living, and (avouM ye 
believe it?) the latter says he doesn’t intend to meet the bill, on 
the score that he was a minor when he gave it. On Avhich Burke 
Avas in such a rage that he took a liorseAvhip and vowed he’d beat 
the Baronet to a jelly, and post him in every club, in Dublin, and 
publish every circumstance of the transaction.” 

“ It does seem rather a queer one,” says one of Mr. Bodkin’s 
hearers. 

“ Queer indeed : but that’s not it, you see ; for Sir Rufford is 
as honourable a man as ever lived ; and after this quarrel he paid 
Burke his money, and they’ve been warm friends ever since. But 
what I Avant to show ye is our infernal luck. Three months before^ 
Sir Rufford had sold that very horse for three hundeS guineas^ 

The worthy gentleman had just ordered in a fresh tumbler of 
his favourite liquor, when we Avished him good-night, and slept by 
no means the worse, because the bedroom candle Avas carried by 
one of the prettiest young chambermaids possible. 

Next morning, surrounded by a croAvd of beggars more filthy, 
hideous, and importunate than any I think in the most favoured 
towns of the south, Ave set off, a coach-load, for Dublin. A clergy- 
man, a guard, a Scotch farmer, a butcher, a bookseller’s hack, a 
lad bound for Maynooth and another for Trinity, made a varied 


BALLINASLOE TO DUBLIN 


481 


pleasant party enough, where each, according to his lights, had 
something to say. 

I have seldom seen a more dismal and uninteresting road than 
that which we now took, and which brought us through the “ old, 
inconvenient, ill-built, and ugly town of Athlone.” The painter 
would find here, however, some good subjects for his sketch-book, 
in spite of the comminatioii of the Guide-book, Here, too, great 
improvements are taking place for the Shannon navigation, which 
will render the town not so inconvenient as at present it is stated 
to be ; and hard by lies a little village that is known and loved 
by all the world where English is spoken. It is called Lishoy, 
but its real name is Auburn, and it gave birth to one Noll Goldsmith, 
whom Mr. Boswell was in the habit of despising very heartily. At 
the Quaker town of Moate, the butclier and the farmer dropped 
off, the clergyman went inside, and their places were filled by four 
Maynoothiaus, whose vacation was just at an end. One of them, 
a freshman, was inside the coach with the clergyman, and told 
him, with rather a long face, of the dismal discipline of his college. 
They are not allowed to quit the gates (except on general walks) ; 
they are expelled if they read a newspaper ; and they begin term 
with “ a retreat ” of a week, which time they are made to devote 
to silence, and, as it is supposed, to devotion and meditation. 

I must say the young fellows drank plenty of whisky on the 
road to prepare them for their year’s abstinence ; and, when at 
length aiTived in the miserable village of Maynooth, determined 
not to go into college that night, but to devote the evening to “ a 
lark.” They were simple kind-hearted young men, sons of farmers 
or tradesmen seemingly ; and, as is always the case here, except 
among some of the gentry, very gentlemanlike and pleasing in 
manners. Their talk was of this companion and that ; how one 
was in rhetoric, and another in logic, and a third had got liis 
curacy. Wait for a while; and with the happy system pursued 
within the walls of their college, those smiling good-humoured faces 
will come out with a scowl, and downcast eyes that seem afraid 
to look the world in the face. When the time comes for them 
to take leave of yonder dismal-looking barracks, they will be men 
no longer, but bound over to the Church, body and soul ; their 
free thoughts chained down and kept in darkness, their honest 
affections mutilated. Well, I hope they will be happy to-night 
at any rate, and talk and laugh to their hearts’ content. The poor 
freshman, whose big chest is carried off by the porter yonder to 
the inn, has but twelve hours more of hearty, natural human life. 
To-morrow, they will begin their work upon him; cramping his 
mind, and bitting his tongue, and firing and cutting at his heart, — 


482 


THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK 


breaking him to pull the Church chariot. Ah ! why didn’t he stop 
at home, and dig potatoes and get children 1 

Part of the drive from Maynooth to Dublin is exceedingly 
pretty : you are carried through Leixlip, Lucan, Chapelizod, and 
by scores of parks and villas, until the gas-lamps come in sight. 
Was there ever a cockney that was not glad to see them ; and 
did not prefer the sight of them, in his heart, to the best lake or 
mountain ever invented ? Pat the waiter comes jumping down to 
the car and says, “Welcome back, sir ! ” and bustles the trunk into 
the queer little bedroom, with all the cordial hospitality ima.ginable. 


CHAPTER XXIV 


TJFO DAYS IN IFICKLOIV 

T he little tour we have just been taking has been performed, 
not only by myriads of the “ car-drivingest, tay-drinkingest, 
say-bathingest people in the world,” the inhabitants, of the 
city of Dublin, but also by all the tourists who have come to dis- 
cover this country for the benefit of the English nation. “Look 
here ! ” says the ragged bearded genius of a guide at the Seven 
Churches. “ This is the spot which Mr. Henry Inglis particularly 
admired, and said it was exactly like Norway. Many’s the song 
I’ve heard Mr. Sam Lover sing here — a pleasant gentleman entirely. 
Have you seen my picture that’s taken off in Mrs. Hall’s book'? 
All the strangers know me by it, though it makes me much cleverer 
than I am.” Similar tales has he of Mr. Barrow, and the Trans- 
atlantic Willis, and of Crofton Croksr, who has been everywhere.. 

The guide’s remarks concerning the works of these gentlemen 
insjjired me, I must confess, with considerable disgust and jealousy. 
A plague take them ! What remains for me to discover after the 
gallant adventurers in the service of Paternoster Row have examined 
every rock, lake, and ruin of the district, exhausted it of all its 
legends, and “invented new” most likely, as their daring genius 
I)rompted ? Hence it follows that the description of the two days’ 
jaunt must of necessity be short ; lest persons who liave read former 
accounts should be led to refer to the same, and make comparisons 
which might possibly be unfavourable to the present humble pages. 

Is there anything new to be said regarding the journey 1 In 
the first place, there’s the railroad : it’s no longer than the railroad 
to Greenwich, to be sure, and almost as well known : but has it 
been done ? that’s the question ; or has anybody discovered the 
dandies on the railroad ? 

After wondering at the beggars and carmen of Dublin, the 
stranger can’t help admiring another vast and numerous class of 
inhabitants of the city — namely, the dandies. Such a number of 
smartly-dressed young fellows I don’t think any town possesses : no, 
not Paris, where the young shopmen, with spurs and stays, may be 
remarked strutting abroad on fete-days; nor London, wliere on 


484 


THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK 


Sundays, in the Park, you see thousands of this cheap kind of 
aristocracy parading; nor Liverpool, famous for the breed of com- 
mercial dandies, desk and counter D’Orsays and cotton and sugar- 
barrel Brummels, and whom one remarks pushing on to business 
with a brisk determined air. All the above races are only to be 
encountered on holidays, except by those persons whose affairs take 
them to shops, docks, or counting-houses, where these fascinating 
young fellows labour during the week. 

But the Dublin breed of dandies is quite distinct from those of 
the various cities above named, and altogether • superior : for they 
appear every day, and all day long, not once a week merely, and 
have an original and splendid character and appearance of their own, 
very hard to describe, though no doubt every traveller, as well as 
myself, has admired and observed it. They assume a sort of 
military and ferocious look, not observable in other cheap dandies, 
except in Paris perhaps now and then ; and are to be remarked not 
so much for the splendour of their ornaments as for the profusion of 
them. Thus, for instance, a hat which is worn straight over the 
two eyes costs very likely more than one which hangs upon one ear ; 
a great oily bush of hair to balance the hat (otherwise the head no 
doubt would fall hopelessly on one side) is even more economical 
than a crop which requires the barber’s scissors oft-times ; also a 
tuft on the chin may be had at a small expense of bear’s-grease by 
persons of a proper age ; and although big pins are the fashion, I am 
bound to say I have never seen so many or so big as here. Large 
agate marbles or “taws,” globes terrestrial and celestial, pawn- 
brokers’ balls, — I cannot find comparisons large enough for these 
wonderful ornaments of the person. Canes also should be mentioned, 
which are sold very splendid, with gold or silver heads, for a shilling 
on the Quays ; and the dandy not uncommonly finishes off with a 
horn quizzing-glass, which being stuck in one eye contracts the brows 
and gives a fierce determined look to the whole countenance. 

In idleness at least these young men can compete with the 
greatest lords; and the wonder is, how the city can support so 
many of them, or they themselves ; how they manage to spend 
their time : who gives them money to ride hacks in the “Phaynix” 
on field and race days ; to have boats at Kingstown during the 
su miner ; and to be crowding the railway-coaches all the day long ? 
Cars go whirling about all day, bearing squads of them. You see 
them sauntering at all the railway-stations in vast numbers, and 
jumping out of the carriages as the trains come up, and greeting 
other dandies wth that rich large brogue which some actor ought 
to make known to the English public ; it being the biggest, richest, 
and coarsest of all the brogues of Ireland. 


DUBLIN DANDIES 


485 


I think these dandies are the chief objects which arrest the 
stranger’s attention as he travels on the Kingstown railroad, and 
I have always been so much occupied in watcliing and wondering 
at them as scarcely to have leisure to look at anything else during 
the pretty little ride of twenty minutes so beloved by every Dublin 
cockney. The waters of the bay wash in many places the piers on 
which the railway is built, and you see the calm stret(di of water 
beyond, and the big purple hill of Howth, and the lighthouses, and 
tlie jetties, and the shippiiig. Yesterday was a boat-race (I don’t 
know how many scores of such take place during the season), and 
you may be sure there were tens of thousands of the dandies to 
look on. There had been boat-races the two days previous : before 
that, had been a field day — before that, three days of garrison races 
— to-day, to-morrow, and the day after, there are races at Howth. 
There seems some sameness in the sports, but everybody goes ; 
everybody is never tired ; and then, I suppose, comes the punch- 
party, and the song in the evening — the same old pleasures, and 
the same old songs the next day, and so on to the end. As for the 
boat-race, I saw two little boats in the distance tugging away for 
dear life — the beach and piers swarming with spectators, the bay 
full of small yachts and innumerable row-boats, and in the midst 
of the assemblage a convict-ship lying ready for sail, with a black 
mass of poor wTetches on her deck — who, too, w^ere eager for 
pleasure. 

Who is not, in this country 1 Walking away from the pier and 
King George’s column, you arrive upon row^s after rows of pleasure- 
houses, wiiither all Dublin flocks during the summer-time — for 
every one must have his sea-bathing ; and they say that the country- 
houses to the w^est of the towm are empty, or to be had for very 
small prices, while for those on the coast, especially towards Kings- 
towm, there is the readiest sale at large prices. I have paid frequent 
visits to one, of w^hich the rent is as great as that of a tolerable 
London house ; and there seem to be others suited to all purses : for 
instance, there are long lines of two-roomed houses, stretching far 
back and away from the sea, accommodating, doubtless, small com- 
mercial men, or small families, or some of those travelling dandies 
w^e have just been talking about, and wdiose costume is so cheap 
and so splendid. 

A two-horse car, w^hich will accommodate tw^elve, or Avill con- 
descend to receive twmnty passengers, starts from the raitay-station 
for Bray, running along the coast for the chief part of the journey, 
though you have but few^ view^s of the sea, on account of intervening 
w'oods and hills. The wiiole of this country is covered with hand- 
some villas and their gardens and pleasure-grounds. There are 


486 


THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK 


round many of the houses parks of some extent, and always of 
considerable beauty, among the trees of wliich the road winds. 
New churches are likewise to be seen in various places ; built like 
the poorhouses, that are likewise everywhere springing up, pretty 
much upon one plan — a sort of bastard or Vauxhall Gothic — re- 
sembling no architecture of any age previous to that when Horace 
Walpole invented the Castle of Otranto and the other monstrosity 
upon Strawberry Hill : though it must be confessed that those on 
the Bray line are by no means so imaginative. Well, what matters, 
say you, that the churches be ugly, if the truth is preached within ? 
Is it not fair, however, to say that Beauty is the truth too, of its 
kind ? and why should it not be cultivated as well as other truth ? 
Why build these hideous barbaric temples, when at the expense of 
a little study and taste beautiful structures might be raised 1 

After leaving Bray, with its j)leasant bay, and yjleasant river, 
and pleasant inn, the little Wicklow tour may be said to commence 
properly; and, as that romantic and beautiful country has been 
described many times in familiar terms, our only chance is to speak 
thereof in romantic and beautiful language, such as no other writer 
can possibly have employed. 

We rang at the gate of the steward’s lodge and said, “ Grant 
us a pass, we pray, to see the parks of Powerscourt, and to behold 
the brown deer upon the grass, and the cool shadows under the 
whispering trees.” 

But the steward’s son answered, “ You may not see the parks 
of Powerscourt, for the lord of the castle comes home, and we 
expect him daily.” So, wondering at this reply, but not under- 
standing the same, we took leave of the son of the steward and 
said, “ No doubt Powerscourt is not. fit to see. Have we not seen 
parks in England, my brother, and shall we break our hearts that 
this Irish one hath its gates closed to us ? ” 

Then the car-boy said, “My lords, the park is shut, but the 
waterfall runs for every man ; will it please you to see the water- 
fall ? ” “ Boy,” we replied, “ we have seen many waterfalls ; 
nevertheless, lead on ! ” And the boy took his pipe out of his 
mouth and belaboured the ribs of his beast. 

And the horse made believe, as it were, to trot, and jolted the 
ardent travellers ; and we passed the green trees of Tinnehinch, 
which the grateful Irish nation bought and consecrated to the race 
of Grattan; and we said, “What nation will spend fifty thousand 
pounds for our benefit 1 ” and we wished we might get it ; and we 
passed on. The birds were, meanwhile, chanting concerts in the 
woods ; and the sun was double-gilding the golden corn. 

And we came to a hill, which was steep and long of descent ; 


POWERSCOURT WATERFALL 


487 


and the car-boy said, “ My lords, I may never descend this hill with 
safety to your honours’ bones : for my horse is not sure of foot, and 
loves to kneel in the highway. Descend therefore, and I will await 
your return here on the top of the hill.” 

So we descended, and one grumbled greatly ; but the other said, 
“ Sir, be of good heart ! the way is pleasant, and the footman will 
not weary as he travels it.” And we went through the swinging 
gates of a park, where the harvestmen sate at their potatoes — a 
mealy meal. 

The way was not short, as the companion said, but still it was 
a pleasant way to walk. Green stretches of grass were there, and 
a forest nigh at hand. It was but September : yet the autumn 
had already begun to turn the green trees into red ; and the ferns 
that were waving underneath the trees were reddened and fading 
too. And as Dr. J ones’s boys of a Saturday disport in the meadows 
after school-hours, so did the little clouds run races over the waving 
grass. And as grave ushers who look on smiling at the sports of 
these little ones, so stood the old trees around the green, whispering 
and nodding to one another. 

Purple mountains rose before us in front, and we began presently 
to hear a noise and roaring afar off — not a fierce roaring, but one 
deep and calm, like to the respiration of the great sea, as he lies 
basking on the sands in the sunshine. 

And we came soon to a little hillock of green, which was stand- 
ing before a huge mountain of purple black, and there were white 
clouds over the mountains, and some trees waving on the hillock, 
aud between the trunks of them we saw the waters of the water- 
fall descending; and there was a snob on a rock, who stood and 
examined the same. 

Then we approached the water, passing the clump of oak-trees. 
The waters were white, and the cliffs which they varnished were 
purple. But those round about were grey, tall, and gay with blue 
shadows, and ferns, heath, and rusty-coloured funguses sprouting 
here and there in the same. But in the ravine where the waters 
fell, roaring as it were with the fall, the rocks were dark, and the 
foam of the cataract w'as of a yellow colour. And we stood, and 
were silent, and wondered. And still the trees continued to wave, 
and the waters to roar and tumble, and the sun to shine, and the 
fresh wind to blow. 

And we stood and looked : and said in our hearts it was 
beautiful, and bethought us how shall all this be set down in types 
and ink 1 (for our trade is to write books and sell the same — a 
chapter for a guinea, a line for a penny) ; and the waterfall roared 
in answer : “ For shame, 0 vain man : think not of thy books and 


488 


THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK 


of thy pence now ; but look on, and wonder, and be silent. Can 
types or ink describe my beauty, though aided by thy small wit ? 
I am made for thee to praise and wonder at : be content, and cherish 
thy wonder. It is enough that thou hast seen a great thing : is it 
needful that thou shouldst prate of all thou hast seen 1 ” 

So we came away silently, and walked through the park without 
looking back. And there was a man at the gate, who opened it and 
seemed to say, Give me a little sixpence.” But we gave nothing, 
and walked up the hill, which was sore to climb ; and on the 
summit found the car-boy, who was lolling on his cushions and 
smoking, as happy as a lord. 

Quitting the waterfall at Powerscourt (the grand style in which 
it has been described was adopted in order that the reader, who has 
probably read other descriptions of the spot, might have at least 
something new in this account of it), we speedily left behind us the 
rich and wooded tract of country about Powerscourt, and came to a 
bleak tract, which, perhaps by way of contrast with so much natural 
wealth, is not unpleasing, and began ascending what is very properly 
called the Long Hill. Here you see, in the midst of the loneliness, 
a grim-looking barrack, that was erected when, after the Rebellion, 
it was necessary for some time to occupy this most rebellious 
country; and a church, looking equally dismal, a lean-looking 
sham-Gothic building, in the midst of this green desert. The road 
to Luggala, whither we were bound, turns off the Long Hill, up 
another hill, which seems still longer and steeper, inasmuch as it 
was ascended perforce on foot, and over lonely boggy moorlands, 
enlivened by a huge grey boulder plumped here and there, and 
comes, one wonders how, to the spot. Close to this hill of Slieve- 
buck is marked in the maps a district called “the uninhabited 
country,” and these stones probably fell at a period of time when 
not only this district, but all the world, was uninhabited, — and in 
some convulsion of the neighbouring mountains this and other 
enormous rocks were cast abroad. 

From behind one of them, or out of the ground somehow, as we 
went up the hill, sprang little ragged guides, who are always lurking 
about in search of stray pence from tourists ; and we had three or 
four of such at our back by the time we were at the top of the hill. 
Almost the first sight we saAV was a smart coach-and-four, with a 
loving wedding-party within, and a genteel valet and lady’s-maid 
without. I wondered had they been burying their modest loves 
in the uninhabited district? But presently, from the top of the 
hill, I saw the place in which their honeymoon had been passed ; nor 
could any jmir of lovers, nor a pious hermit bent on retirement from 
the world, have selected a more sequestered spot. 


VULGAR HISTORIES 


489 


Standing by a big shining granite stone on the hill-top, we 
looked immediately down upon Lough Tay — a little round lake of 
half a mile in length, which lay beneath us as black as a pool of 
ink — a high, crumbling, white-sided mountain falling abruptly into 
it on the side opposite to us, with a huge ruin of shattered rocks at 
its base. Northwards, we could see between mountains a portion 
of the neighbouring lake of Lough Dan — which, too, was dark, 
though the Annamoe river, which connects the two lakes, lay 
coursing through the greenest possible flats and shining as bright 
as silver. Brilliant green shores, too, come gently down to the 
southern side of Lough Tay ; through these runs another river, 
with a small rapid or fall, which makes a music for the lake ; and 
here, amidst beautiful wmods, lies a villa, where the four horses, the 
groom and valet, the postillions, and the young couple had no doubt 
been hiding themselves. 

Hereabouts, the owner of the villa, Mr. Latouche, has a great 
grazing establishment ; and some herd - boys, no doubt seeing 
strangers on the hill, thought proper that the cattle should stray 
that way, that they might drive them back again, and parenthetic- 
ally ask the travellers for money, — everybody asks travellers for 
money, as it seems. Next day, admiring in a labourer’s arms a 
little child — his master’s son, who could not speak — the labourer, 
his he-nurse, spoke for him, and demanded a little sixpence to buy 
the child apples. One grows not a little callous to this sort of 
beggary : and the only one of our numerous young guides who got 
a reward was the raggedest of them. He and his companions had 
just come from school, he said, — not a Government school, but a 
Ijrivate one, where they paid. I asked how much, — “Was it a 
penny a week 1 ” “ No ; not a penny a week, but so much at the 
end of the year.” “Was it a barrel of meal, or a few stone of 
potatoes, or something of that sort 'I ” “ Yes ; something of that 

sort.” 

The something must, however, have been a very small something 
on the poor lad’s part. He "was one of four young ones, who lived 
wdth their mother, a widow. He had no work ; he could get no 
work ; nobody had work. His mother had a cabin with no land — - 
not a perch of land, no potatoes — nothing but the cabin. How did 
they live? — the mother knitted stockings. I asked had she any 
stockings at home?— the boy said, “No.” How did he live?— he 
lived how he could ; and we gave him threepence, ^vith which, in 
delight, he went bounding off to the poor mother. Gracious 
heavens ! what a history to hear, told by a child looking quite 
cheerful as he told it, and as if the story was quite a common one. 
And a common one, too, it is : and God forgive us. 


490 


THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK 


Here is another, and of a similar low kind, but rather pleasanter. 
We asked the car-boy how much he earned. He said, “ Seven 
shillings a week, and his chances ” — which, in the summer season, 
from the number of tourists who are jolted in his car, must be 
tolerably good — eight or nine shillings a week more, probably. 
But, he said, in winter his master did not hire him for the car ; 
and he was obliged to look for work elsewhere : as for saving, he 
never had saved a shilling in his life. 

AVe asked him was he married? and he said, No, but he was as 
good as married ; for he had an old mother and four little brothers 
to keep, and six mouths to feed, and to dress himself decent to 
drive the gentlemen. Was not the “as good as married” a pretty 
expression? and might not some of what are called their betters 
learn a little good from these simple poor creatures. There’s many 
a young fellow who sets up in the world would think it rather hard 
to have four brothers to support ; and I have heard more than one 
genteel Christian pining over five hundred a year. A few such may 
read this, perhaps : let them think of the Irish widow with the four 
children and nothing^ and at least be more contented with their 
port and sherry and their leg of mutton. 

. This brings us at once to the subject of dinner and the little 
village, Roundwood, which was reached by this time, lying a few 
miles off from the lakes, and reached by a road not particularly 
remarkable for any picturesqueness in beauty ; though you pass 
through a simple pleasing landscape, always agreeable as a repose, 
I think, after viewing a sight so beautiful as those mountain lakes 
we have just quitted. All the hills up which we had panted had 
imparted a fierce sensation of hunger; and it was nobly decreed 
that we should stop in the middle of the street of Roundwood, 
impartially between the two hotels, and solemnly decide upon a 
resting-place after having inspected the larders and bedrooms of 
each. 

And here, as an impartial writer, I must say that the hotel of 
Mr. AYheatly possesses attractions which few men can resist, in the 
shape of two very handsome young ladies his daughters ; whose 
faces, were they but painted on his signboard, instead of the 
mysterious piece which ornaments it, would infallibly draw tourists 
into the house, thereby giving the opposition inn of Murphy not 
the least chance of custom. 

A landlord’s daughters in England, inhabiting a little country 
inn, would be apt to lay the cloth for the traveller, and their 
respected father would bring in the first dish of the dinner; but 
this arrangement is never known in Ireland ; we scarcely ever see 
the cheering countenance of my landlord. And as for the young 


THE THEATRE 


491 

ladies of Roundwood, I am bound to say that no young persons 
in Baker Street could be more genteel ; and that our bill, when it 
was brought the next morning, was written in as pretty and fashion- 
able a lady’s hand as ever was formed in the most elegant finishing 
school at Pimlico. 

Of the dozen houses of the little village, the half seem to be 
houses of entertainment. A green common stretches before these, 
with its rural accompaniments of geese, pigs, and idlers ; a park 
and plantation at the end of the village, and plenty of trees round 
about it, give it a happy, comfortable, English look ; which is, to 
my notion, the best compliment that can be paid to a hamlet ; for 
where, after all, are villages so pretty 1 

Here, rather to one’s wonder — for the district was not thickly 
enough populated to encourage dramatic exhibitions — a sort of 
theatre was erected on the common, a ragged cloth covering the 
spectators and the actors, the former (if there were any) obtaining 
admittance through two doors on the stage in front, marked “ pit 
& GALERY.” Why should' the word not be, spelt with one l as 
with two ? 

The entrance to the “ pit ” w'as stated to be threepence, and to 
the ^‘galery” twopence. We heard the drums and pipes of the 
orchestra as we sate at dinner : it seemed to be a good opportunity 
to examine Irish humour of a peculiar sort, and we promised our- 
selves a pleasant evening in the pit. 

But although the drums began to beat at half-past six, and a 
crowd of young people formed round the ladder at that hour, to 
whom the manager of the troop addressed the most vehement invi- 
tations to enter, nobody seemed to be inclined to mount the steps : 
for the fact most likely was, that not one of the poor fellows pos- 
sessed the requisite twopence which would induce the fat old lady 
who sate by it to fling open the gallery-door. At one time I 
thought of offering a half-crown for a purchase of tickets for twenty, 
and so at once benefiting the manager and the crowd of ragged 
urchins who stood wistfully witliout his pavilion ; but it seemed 
ostentatious, and we had not the courage to face the tall man in 
the greatcoat gesticulating and shouting in front of the stage and 
make the proposition. 

Why not 'I It would have given tlie company potatoes at least 
for supper, and made a score of children happy. They would have 
seen “the learned pig who spells your name, the feats of manly 
activity, the wonderful Italian vaulting ; ” and they would have 
heard the comic songs by “ your humble servant.” 

“ Your humble servant ” was the head of the troop : a long 
man, with a broad accent, a yellow topcoat, and a piteous lean 


492 


THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK 


face. What a speculation was this poor fellow’s ! he must have a 
company of at least a dozen to keep. There were three girls in 
trousers, who danced in front of the stage, in Polish caps, tossing 
their arms about to the tunes of three musicianers ; there was a 
page, two young tragedy-actors, and a clown ; there was the fat old 
woman at the gallery-door waiting for the twopences ; there was 
the Jack Pudding ; and it was evident that there must have been 
some one within, or else who would take care of the learned j^ig? 

The poor manager stood in front, and shouted to the little 
Irishry beneath ; but no one seemed to move. Then he brought 
forward Jack Pudding, and had a dialogue with him ; the jocularity 
of which, by heavens ! made the heart ache to hear. We had de- 
termined, at least, to go to the play before that, but the dialogue 
was too much : we were obliged to walk away, unable to face that 
dreadful Jack Pudding, and heard the poor manager shouting still 
for many hours through the night, and the drums thumping vain 
invitations to the people. 0 unhappy children of the Hibernian 
Thespis ! it is my ^lief that they must have eaten the learned pig 
that night for supper. 

It was Sunday morning when we left the little inn at Round- 
wood : the people were flocking in numbers to church, on cars and 
pillions, neat, comfortable, and well dressed. We saw in this 
country more health, more beauty, and more shoes than I have 
remarked in any quarter. That famous resort of sightseers, the 
Devil’s Glen, lies at a few miles’ distance from the little village ; 
and, having gone on the car as near to the spot as the road 
permitted, we made across tlie fields — boggy, stony, ill-tilled fields 
they were-— for about a mile, at the end of which walk we found 
ourselves on the brow of the ravine that has received so ugly a 
name. 

Is there a legend about the place '? No doubt for this, as for 
almost every other natural curiosity in Ireland, there is some tale 
of monk, saint, fairy, or devil ; but our guide on the present day 
was a barrister from Dublin, who did not deal in fictions by any 
means so romantic, and the history, whatever it was, remained 
untold. Perhaps the little breechesless cicerone who offered himself 
would have given us the story, but we dismissed the urchin with 
scorn, and had to find our own way through bush and bramble down 
to the entrance of the gully. 

Here we came on a cataract, which looks very big in Messrs. 
Curry’s pretty little Guide-book (that every traveller to Wicklow 
will be sure to have in his pocket) ; but the waterfall, on this shin- 
ing Sabbath morning, was disposed to labour as little as possible, 
and indeed is a spirit of a very humble ordinary sort. 


THE DEVIL’S GLEN 


493 

But there is a ravine of a mile and a half, through which a 
river runs roaring (a lady who keeps the gate Avill not object to 
receive a gratuity) — there is a ravine, or Devil’s Glen, which forms 
a delightful wild walk, and where a Methuselah of a landscape- 
painter might find studies for all his life long. All sorts of foliage 
and colour, all sorts of delightful caprices of light and shadow — the 
river tumbling and frothing amidst the boulders — “raucum per 
Isevia murmur saxa ciens,” and a chorus of 150,000 birds (there 
might be more), hopping, twittering, singing under the clear cloud- 
less Sabbath scene, make this Avalk one of the most delightful that 
can be taken ; and indeed I hope there is no harm in saying that 
you may get as much out of an hour’s walk there as out of the best 
hour’s extempore preaching. But this was as a salvo to our con- 
science for not being at church. 

Here, however, was a long aisle, arched gothically overhead, in 
a much better taste than is seen in some of those dismal new 
churches ; and, by way of painted glass, the sun lighting up multi- 
tudes of various-coloured leaves, and the birds for choristers, and 
the river by way of organ, and in it stones enough to make a whole 
library of sermons. No man can walk in such a place without feel- 
ing grateful, and grave, and humble ; and without thanking Heaven 
for it as he comes away. And, walking and musing in this free 
happy place, one could not help thinking of a million and a half of 
brother cockneys shut up in their huge prison (the treadmill for the 
day being idle), and told by some legislators that relaxation is sinful, 
that works of art are abominations except on week-days, and that 
their proper place of resort is a dingy tabernacle, where a loud-voiced 
man is howling about hell-fire in bad grammar. Is not this beautiful 
world, too, a part of our religion ? Yes, truly, in whatever way my 
Lord John Russell may vote; and it is to be learned without having 
recourse to any professor at any Bethesda, Ebenezer, or Jerusalem : 
there can be no mistake about it ; no terror, no bigoted dealing of 
damnation to one’s neighbour : it is taught without false emphasis 
or vain spouting on the preacher’s part — how should there be such 
with sucli a preacher ? 

This wiki onslaught upon sermons and preachers needs perhaps 
an explanation : for which purpose we must whisk back out of the 
Devil’s Glen (improperly so named) to Dublin, and to this day 
week, when, at this very time, I heard one of the first preachers of 
the city deliver a sermon that lasted for an hour and twenty minutes 
— time enough to walk up the Glen and back, and remark a thousand 
delightful things by the way. 

]yir^ Q- ’s church (though there would be no harm in 

mentioning the gentleman’s name, for a more conscientious and 


494 


THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK 


excellent man, as it is said, cannot be) is close by the Custom House 
in Dublin, and crowded morning and evening with his admirers. 
The service was beautifully read by him, and the audience joined in 
the responses, and in the psalms and hymns,* with a fervour which 
is very unusual in England. Then came the sermon ; and what 
more can be said of it than that it was extempore, and lasted for 
an hour and twenty minutes 1 The orator never failed once for a 
word, so amazing is his practice ; though, as a stranger to this kind 
of exercise, I could not help trembling for the performer, as one has 
for Madame Saqui on the slack-rope, in the midst of a blaze of 
rockets and squibs, expecting every minute she must go over. But 
the artist was too skilled for that • and after some tremendous bound 
of a metaphor, in the midst of which you expect he must tumble 
neck and heels, and be engulfed in the dark abyss of nonsense, down 
he w'as sure to come, in a most graceful attitude too, in the midst of 
a fluttering “ Ah ! ” from a thousand wondering people. 

But I declare solemnly that when I came to try and recollect of 
what the exhibition consisted, and give an account of the sermon at 
dinner that evening, it was quite impossible to remember a word of 
it; although, to do the orator justice, he repeated many of his 
opinions a great number of times over. Thus, if he had to dis- 
course of death to us, it was, “ At the approach of the Dark Angel 
of the Grave,” “At the coming of the grim King of Terrors,” “At 
the warning of that awful Power to whom all of us must bow 
down,” “ At the summons of that Pallid Spectre wliose equal foot 
knocks at the monarch’s tower or the poor man’s cabin ” — and so 
forth. There is an examiner of plays, and indeed there ought to 
be an examiner of sermons, by which audiences are to be fully as 
much injured or misguided as by the other named exhibitions. 
What call have reverend gentlemen to repeat their dicta half-a-dozen 
times over, like Sir Robert Peel when he says anything that he 
fancies to be witty? Why are men to be kept for an hour and 
twenty minutes listening to that which may be more effectually 
said in twenty ? 

And it need not be said here that a church is not a sermon- 

* Here is an extract from one of the latter — 

“ Hasten to some distant isle, 

In the bosom of the deep, 

Where the skies for ever smile. 

And the blacks for ever weep.” 

Is it not a shame that such nonsensical false twaddle should be sung in 
a house of the Church of England, and by people assembled for grave and 
decent worship ? 


PADDY’S OPERA 


495 


house — that it is devoted to a purpose much more lofty and sacred, 
for which has been set apart the noblest service, every single word 
of which latter has been previously weighed with the most scrupu- 
lous and thoughtful reverence. And after this sublime work of 
genius, learning, and piety is concluded, is it not a shame that a 
man should mount a desk, who has not taken the trouble to arrange 
his words beforehand, and speak thence his crude opinions in his 
doubtful grammar ? It will be answered that the extempore 
preacher does not deliver crude opinions, but that he arranges 
his discourse beforehand : to all which it may be replied that 

Mr. contradicted himself more than once in the course 

of the above oration, and repeated himself a half-dozen of times. 
A man in that place has no right to say a word too much or too 
little. 

And it comes to this, — it is the preacher the people follow, not 
the prayers ; or why is this church more frequented than any other ? 
It is that warm emphasis, and word-mouthing, and vulgar imagery, 
and glib rotundity of phrase, which brings them together and keeps 
them happy and breathless. Some of this class call the Cathedral 
Service Paddy’s, Opera ; they say it is Popish — downright scarlet — 
they won’t go to it. They will have none but their own hymns — 
and pretty they are — no ornaments but those of their own minister, 
his rank incense and tawdry rhetoric. Coming out of the church, 
on the Custom House steps hard by, there was a fellow with a bald 
large forehead, a new black coat, a little Bible, spouting — spouting 
“ in omne volubilis CBvum ” — the very counterpart of the reverend 
gentleman hard by. It was just the same thing, just as well done : 
the eloquence quite as easy and round, the amplifications as ready, 
the big words rolling round the tongue just as within doors. But 
we are out of the Devil’s Glen by this time ; and perhaps, instead 
of delivering a sermon there, we had better have been at church 
hearing one. 

The country people, however, are far more pious ; and the road 
along which we went to Glendalough was thronged with happy 
figures of people plodding to or from mass. A chapel-yard was 
covered with grey cloaks; and at a little inn hard by, stood 
numerous carts, cars, shandrydans, and pillioned horses, awaiting 
the end of the prayers. The aspect of the country is wild, and 
beautiful of course ; but why try to describe it ? I think the Irish 
scenery just like the Irish melodies — sweet, wild, and sad even in 
the sunshine. You can neither represent the one nor the other by 
words ; but I am sure if one could translate “ The Meeting of the 
Waters ” into form and colours, it would fall into the exact shape of 
a tender Irish landscape. So take and play that tune upon your 


THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK 


496 

fiddle, and shut your eyes, and muse a little, and you have the 
whole scene before you. 

I don’t know if tliere is any tune about Glendalough ; but if 
there be, it must be the most delicate, fantastic, fairy melody that 
ever was played. Only fancy can describe the charms of that 
delightful place. Directly you see it, it smiles at you as innocent 
and friendly as a little child ; and once seen, it becomes your 
friend for ever, and you are always happy when you think of 
it. Here is a little lake, and little fords across it, surrounded by 
little mountains, and wdiich lead you now to little islands wdiere 
there are all sorts of fantastic little old chapels and graveyards ; or, 
again, into little brakes and shrubberies wliere small rivers are 
crossing over little rocks, plashing and jumping, and singing as loud 
as ever they can. Thomas Moore has written rather an awful 
description of it; and it may indeed appear big to him, and to 
the fairies who must have inhabited the place in old days, that’s 
clear. For who could be accommodated in it except the little 
people 1 

There are seven churches, whereof the clergy must have been 
the smallest persons, and have had the smallest benefices and the 
littlest congregations ever known. As for the cathedral, what a 
bishoplet it must have been that presided there ! The place would 
hardly hold the Bishop of London, or Mr. Sydney Smith — two full- 
sized clergymen of these days — who would be sure to quarrel there 
for want of room, or for any other reason. There must have been 
a dean no bigger than Mr. Moore before mentioned, and a chapter 
no bigger than that chapter in “ Tristram Shandy ” which does not 
contain a single word, and mere popguns of canons, and a beadle 
about as tall as Crofton Croker, to whip the little boys who were 
playing at taw (with peas) in the yard. 

They say there was a university, too, in the place, with I don’t 
know how many thousand scholars; but for accounts of this there 
is an excellent guide on the spot, who, for a shilling or two, will tell 
all he knows, and a great deal more too. 

There are numerous legends, too, concerning Saint Kevin, and 
Fin MacCoul and the Devil, and the deuce knows what. But these 
stories are, I am bound to say, abominably stupid and stale ; and 
some guide ought to be seized upon and choked, and flung into 
the lake, by way of warning to the others to stop their interminable 
prate. This is the curse attending curiosity, for visitors to almost 

* It must be said, for the worthy fellow w’ho accompanied us, and who 
acted as cicerone previously to the great Willis, the great Hall, the great 
Barrow, that though he wears a ragged coat his manners are those of a gentle- 
man, and his conversation evinces no small talent, taste, and scholarship. 


RETURN TO BRAY 


497 

all the show-places in the country : you have not only the guide — 
who himself talks too much — but a string of ragged amateurs, 
starting from bush and briar, ready to carry his honour’s umbrella 
or my lady’s cloak, or to help either up a bank or across a stream. 
And all the while they look wistfully in your face, saying, “Give 
me sixpence ! ” as clear as looks can speak. The unconscionable 
rogues ! how dare they, for the sake of a little starvation or so, 
interrupt gentlefolks in their pleasure ! 

A long tract of wild country, with a park or two here and there, 
a police-barrack perched on a hill, a half-starved-looking church 
stretching its long scraggy steeple over a wide plain, mountains whose 
base is richly cultivated while their tops are purple and lonely, warm 
cottages and farms nestling at the foot of the hills, and humble cabins 
here and there on the wayside, accompany the car, that jingles back 
over fifteen miles of ground through Inniskerry to Bray. You pass 
by wild gaps and Greater and Lesser Sugar Loaves ; and about eight 
o’clock, when the sky is quite red with sunset, and the long shadows 
are of such a purple as (they may say what they like) Claude could 
no more paint than I can, you catch a glimpse of the sea beyond 
Bray, and crying out, “ Gd/Varra, ^dAarra ! ” affect to be won- 
drously delighted by the sight of that element. 

The fact is, however, that at Bray is one of the best inns in 
Ireland ; and there you may be perfectly sure is a good dinner ready, 
five minutes after the honest car-boy, with innumerable hurroos and 
smacks of his whip, has brought up his passengers to the door with a 
gallop. 


As for the Vale of Avoca, I have not described that : because 
(as has been before occasionally remarked) it is vain to attempt to 
describe natural beauties ; and because, secondly (though this is a 
minor consideration), we did not go thither. But we wxnt on an- 
other day to the Dargle, and to Shanganah, and the city of Cabin- 
teely, and to the Scalp — that wild pass : and I have no more to say 
about them than about the Vale of Avoca. The Dublin cockney, 
who has these places at his door, knows them quite well ; and as 
for the Londoner, who is meditating a trip to the Rhine for the 
summer, or to Brittany or Normandy, let us beseech him to see 
his oivn cmintry first (if Lord Lynd hurst will allow us to call this 
a part of it) ; and if, after twenty -four hours of an easy journey 
from London, the cockney be not placed in the midst of a country 
as beautiful, as strange to him, as romantic as the most imaginative 
man on ’Change can desire, — may this work be praised by the 
critics all round and never reach a second edition ! 

5 2 I 


CHAPTER XXV 

COUNTRY MEETINGS IN KILDARE— MEATH— DROGHEDA 


T agricultural show was to be held at the town of Xaas, and 



I was glad, after having seen the grand exhibition at Cork, 


^ ^ to be present at a more homely, unpretending country 

festival, where the eyes of Europe, as the orators say, did not 
happen to be looking on. Perhaps men are apt, under the idea 
of this sort of inspection, to assume an air somewhat more 
pom^jous and magnificent than that which they wear every day. 
The Naas meeting was conducted without the slightest attempt 
at splendour or display — a hearty, modest, matter-of fact country 


meeting. 


Market-day was fixed upon of course, and the town, as we drove 
into it, was thronged with frieze-coats, the market-place bright with 
a great number of apple-stalls, and the street filled with carts and 
vans of numerous small tradesmen, vending cheeses, or cheap 
crockeries, or ready-made clothes and such goods. A clothier, with 
a great crowd round him, had arrayed himself in a staring new 
waistcoat of his stock, and was turning slowly round to exhibit the 
garment, spouting all the while to his audience, and informing them 
that he could fit out any person, in one minute, “in a complete 
new shuit from head to fut.” There seemed to be a crowd of 
gossips at every shop-door, and, of course, a number of gentlemen 
waiting at the inn-steps, criticising the cars and carriages as they 
drove up. Only those who live in small towns know what an 
object of interest the street becomes, and the carriages and horses 
which pass therein. Most of the gentlemen had sent stock to 
compete for the prizes. The shepherds were tending the stock. 
The judges were making their award, and until their sentence was 
given, no competitors could enter the show-yard. The entrance to 
that, meanwhile, was thronged by a great posse of people, and as 
the gate abutted upon an old grey tower, a number of people had 
scaled that, and were looking at the beasts in the court below. 
Likewise, there was a tall haystack, which possessed similar 
advantages of situation, and was equally thronged with men and 
boys. The rain had fallen heavily all night, the heavens were still 


AGRICULTURAL SHOW AT NAAS 499 

black with it, and the coats of the men, and the red feet of many 
ragged female spectators, were liberally spattered with mud. 

The first object of interest we were called upon to see was a 
famous stallion ; and passing through the little by-streets (dirty 
and small, but not so small and dirty as other by-streets to be seen 
in Irish towns) we came to a porte-cochere, leading into a yard 
filled with wet fresh hay, sinking juicily under the feet ; and here 
in a shed M^as the famous stallion. His sire must have been a 
French diligence-horse ; he was of a roan colour, with a broad chest, 
and short clean legs. His forehead was ornamented with a blue 
ribbon, on which his name and prizes were painted, and on his 
chest hung a couple of medals by a chain — a silver one awarded 
to him at Cork, a gold one carried off by superior merit from other 
stallions assembled to contend at Dublin. When the points of the 
animal w^ere sufficiently discussed, a mare, his sister, was produced, 
and admired still more than himself. Any man who has witnessed 
the p.*rformance of the French horses in the Havre diligence, must 
admire the vast strength and the extraordinary swiftness of the 
breed ; and it was agreed on all hands, that such horses would 
prove valuable in this country, where it is hard now to get a stout 
horse for the road, so much has the fashion for blood, and nothing 
but blood, prevailed of late. 

By the time the stallion was seen, the judges had done their 
arbitration; and we went to the yard, where broad-backed sheep 
were resting peaceably in their pens ; bulls were led about by the 
nose; enormous turnips, both Swedes and Aberdeens, reposed in 
tlie mud ; little cribs of geese, hens, and peafowl were come to try 
for the prize; and pigs might be seen — some encumbered witli 
enormous families, others with fat merely. They poked up one 
brute to walk for us : he made, after many futile attempts, a 
desperate rush forward, his legs almost lost in fat, his immense 
sides quivering and shaking with the exercise ; he was then allowed 
to return to his straw, into which he sank panting. Let us hope 
that he went home with a pink ribbon round his tail that night, 
and got a prize for his obesity. 

I think the pink ribbon was, at least to a cockney, the pleasantest 
sight of all : for on the evening after the show we saw many carts 
going away so adorned, having carried off prizes on the occasion. 
First came a great bull stepping along, he and his driver having 
each a bit of pink on their heads ; then a cart full of sheep ; then 
a car of good-natured-looking people, having a churn in the midst 
of them that sported a pink favour. When all the prizes were 
distributed, a select company sat down to dinner at Macavoy’s 
Hotel ; ami no doubt a reporter who was present has given in the 


500 


THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK 


county paper an account of all the good things eaten and said. At 
our end of the table we had saddle-of-mutton, and I remarked a 
boiled leg of the same delicacy, with turnips, at the opposite ex- 
tremity. Before the vice I observed a large piece of roast-beef, 
which I could not observe at the end of dinner, because it was 
all swallowed. After the mutton we had cheese, and were just 
beginning to think that w^e had dined very sufficiently, when a 
squadron of apple-jjies came smoking in, and convinced us that, in 
such a glorious cause, Britons are never at fault. We ate up tlie 
apple-pies, and then the punch was called for by those who preferred 
that beverage to wine, and the speeches began. 

The chairman gave “ The Queen,” nine times nine and one cheer 
more ; “ Prince Albert and the rest of the Royal Family,” great 
cheering; “The Lord-Lieutenant” — his Excellency’s health was 
received rather coolly, I thought. And then began the real business 
of the night : health of the Naas Society, health of the Agricultural 
Society, and healths all round ; not forgetting the Sallymount 
Beagles and the Kildare Foxhounds — which toasts were received 
with loud clieers and halloos by most of the gentlemen present, 
and elicited brief speeches from the masters of the respective hounds, 
promising good sport next season. After the Kildare Foxhounds, 
an old farmer in a grey coat got gravely up, and without being 
requested to do so in the least, sang a song, stating that — 

“At seven in the morning by most of the clocks 
We rode to Kilruddery in search of a fox 

and at the conclusion of his song challenged a friend to give another 
song. Another old farmer, on this, rose and sang one of Morris’s 
songs with a great deal of queer himiour ; and no doubt many more 
songs were sung during the evening, for plenty of hot-water jugs 
were blocking the door as we went out. 

The jolly frieze-coated songster who celebrated the Kilruddery 
fox, sang, it must be confessed, most wofully out of tune ; but still 
it was pleasant to hear him, and I think the meeting was the most 
agreeable one I liave seen in Ireland : there was more good-humour, 
more cordial union of classes, more frankness and manliness, than 
one is accustomed to find in Irish meetings. All tlie speeches were 
kind-hearted, straightforward speeches, without a word of politics or 
an attempt at oratory ; it was impossible to sjty whether the gentle- 
men present were Protestant or Catholic, — each one had a hearty 
word of encouragement for his tenant, and a kind welcome for his 
neighbour. There were torty stout well-to-do farmers in the room, 
renters of fifty, seventy, a hundred acres of land. There were no 
clergymen present; though it would have been pleasant to have 


.THE SHOW AT BALLYTORE 501 

seen one of each persuasion to say grace for the meeting and the 
meat. 

At a similar meeting at Ballytore tlie next day, I had an 
opportunity of seeing a still finer collection of stock than had been 
brought to Naas, and at the same time one of the most beautiful 

flourishing villages in Ireland. The road to it from H town, 

if not remarkable for its rural beauty, is pleasant to travel, for 
evidences of neat and prosperous husbandry are around you every- 
where : rich crops in the fields, and neat cottages by the roadside, 
accompanying us as far as Ballytore — a white straggling village, 
surrounding green fields of some five furlongs square, with a river 
running in the midst of them, and numerous fine cattle on the green. 
Here is a large windmill, fitted up like a castle, with battlements 
and towers : the castellan thereof is a good-natured old Quaker 
gentleman, and numbers more of his following inhabit the town. 

The consequence was that the shops of the village were the 
neatest possible, though by no means grand or pretentious. Why 
should Quaker shops be neater than other shops ? They suffer to 
the full as much oppression as the rest of the hereditary bondsmen ; 
and yet, in spite of their tyrants, they prosper. 

I must not attempt to pass an opinion upon the stock exhibited 
at Ballytore; but, in the opinion of some large agricultural pro- 
prietors present, it might have figured with advantage in any show 
in England, and certainly was finer than the exhibition at Naas ; 
which, however, is a very young society. The best part of the 
show, however, to everybody’s thinking (and it is pleasant to 
observe the manly fair-play spirit which characterises the society), 
was, that the prizes of the Irish Agricultural Society were awarded 
to two men — one a labourer, the other a very small holder, both 
liaving reared the best stock exhibited on the occasion. At the 
dinner, which took place in a barn of the inn, smartly decorated 
with laurels for the purpose, there w^as as good and stout a body of 
yeomen as at Naas the day previous, but only two landlords ; and 
here, too, as at Naas, neither priest nor parson. Cattle-feeding of 
course formed the principal theme of the after-dinner discourse — 
not, however, altogether to the exclusion of tillage ; and there was 
a good and useful prize for those who could not afford to rear fat 
oxen — for the best ^pt cottage and garden, namely — which was 
won by a poor mar with a large family and scanty precarious 
earnings, but who yet found means to make the most of his small 
resources and to keep his little cottage neat and cleanly. The tariff' 
and the plentiful harvest together had helped to bring down prices 
severely ; and we heard from the farmers much desponding talk. 
I saw hay sold for £2 the ton, and oats for 8s. 3d. the barrel. 


502 


THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK 


In the little village I remarked scarcely a single beggar, and 
very few bare feet indeed among the crowds who came to see the 
show. Here the Quaker village had the advantage of the town of 
Naas, in spite of its poorhouse, which was only half full when we 
went to see it ; but the people prefer beggary and starvation abroad 
to comfort and neatness in the union-house. 

A neater establishment cannot be seen than this ; and liberty 
must be very sweet indeed, when people prefer it and starvation to 
the certainty of comfort in the union-house. We went to see it 
after the show at Naas. 

The first persons we saw at the gate of the place were four 
buxom lasses in blue jackets and petticoats, who were giggling and 
laughing as gaily as so many young heiresses of a thousand a year, 
and who had a colour in their cheeks that any lady of Almack’s 
might envy. They were cleaning pails and carrying in water from 
a green court or playground in front of the house, which some of 
the able-bodied men of the place were busy in enclosing. Passing 
through the large entrance of the house, a nondescript Gothic build- 
ing, we came to a court divided by a road and two low walls : the 
right enclosure is devoted to the boys of the establishment, of whom 
there were about fifty at play : boys more healthy or happy it is 
impossible to see. Separated from them is the nursery ; and here 
were seventy or eighty young children, a shrill clack of happy voices 
leading the way to the door where they were to be found. Boys 
and children had a comfortable little uniform, and shoes were 
furnished for all ; though the authorities did not seem particularly 
severe in enforcing the wearing of the shoes, which most of the 
young persons left behind them. 

In spite of all the Times’s in the world, the place was a happy 
one. It is kept with a neatness and comfort to which, until his 
entrance into the union-liouse, the Irish peasant must perforce have 
been a stranger. All the rooms and passages are white, well scoured, 
and airy ; all the windows are glazed ; all the beds have a good store 
of blankets and sheets. In the women’s dormitories there lay several 
infirm persons, not ill enough for the infirmary, and glad of the 
society of the common room : in one of the men’s sleeping-rooms we 
found a score of old grey-coated men sitting round another who was 
reading prayers to them. And outside the place we found a woman 
starving in rags, as she had been ragged and starving for years ; her 
husband was wounded, and lay in his house upon straw; her children 
were ill with a fever ; she had neither meat, nor physic, nor clothing, 
nor fresh air, nor warmth for them ; — and she preferred to starve on 
rather than enter the house ! 

The last of our agricultural excursions was to the fair of Castle- 


CASTLEDERMOT 


503 


dermot, celebrated for the show of cattle to be seen there, and 
attended by the farmers and gentry of the neighbouring counties. 
Long before reaching the place we met troops of cattle coming from 
it — stock of a beautiful kind, for the most part large, sleek, white, 
long-backed, most of the larger animals being bound for England. 
There was very near as fine a show in the pastures along the road 
— which lies across a light green country with plenty of trees to 
ornament the landscape, and some neat cottages along the roadside. 

At the turnpike of Castledermot the droves of cattle met us by 
scores no longer, but by hundreds, and the long street of the place 
was thronged with oxen, sheep, and horses, and with those who 
wished to see, to sell, or to buy. The squires were all together in 
a cluster at the police-house ; the owners of the horses rode up and 
down, showing the best paces of their brutes ; among whom you 
might see Paddy, in his ragged frieze-coat, seated on his donkey’s 
bare rump, and proposing him for sale. I think I saw a score of 
this humble though useful breed that were brought for sale to the 
fair. “ I can sell him,” says one fellow, with a pompous air, “ wid 
his tackle or widout.” He was looking as grave over the negotiation 
as if it had been for a thousand pounds'. Besides the donkeys, of 
course there was plenty of poultry, and there were pigs without 
number, shrieking and struggling and pushing hither and thither 
among the crowd, rebellious to the straw-rope. It was a fine thing 
to see one huge grim ter and the manner in which he was landed 
into a cart. The cart was let down on an easy inclined plane to 
tempt him ; two men ascending, urged him by the forelegs, otlier 
two entreated him by the tail. At length, when more than half of 
his body had been coaxed upon the cart, it was suddenly whisked 
up, causing the animal thereby to fall forward ; a parting shove sent 
him altogether into the cart ; the two gentlemen inside jumped out, 
and the monster was left to ride home. 

The farmers, as usual, were talking of the tariff, predicting ruin 
to themselves, as farmers will, on account of the decreasing price 
of stock and the consequent fall of grain. Perhaps the person most 
to be pitied is the poor pig-proprietor yonder : it is his rent which 
he is carrying through the market squeaking at the end of the 
straw-rope, and Sir Robert’s bill adds insolvency to that poor 
fellow’s misery. 

This was the last of the sights which the kind owner of 

H town had invited me into his country to see; and I think 

they were among the most pleasing I witnessed in Ireland. Rich 
and poor were working friendlily together ; priest and parson were 
alike interested in these honest, homely, agricultural festivals ; not 
a word was said about hereditary bondage and English tyranny ; and 


504 . 


THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK 


one did not much regret the absence of those patriotic topics of 
conversation. If but for the sake of the change, it was pleasant 
to pass a few days with people among whom tliere was no 
quarrelling : no furious denunciations against Popery on the part 
of the Protestants, and no tirades against tlie parsons from their 
bitter and scornful opponents of the other creed. 

Next Sunday, in the county Meath, in a quiet old church lying 
amongst meadows and fine old stately avenues of trees, and for the 
benefit of a congregation of some thirty persons, I heard for tlie 
space of an hour and twenty minutes some thorough Protestant 
doctrine, and the Popish superstitions properly belaboured. Does 
it strengthen a man in his own creed to liear his neighbour’s belief 
abused One would imagine so : for though abuse converts nobody, 
yet many of our pastors think they are not doing their duty by 
their own fold unless they fling stones at the flock in the next field, 
and have, for the honour of the service, a match at cudgelling with 
the shepherd. Our shepherd to-day was of this pugnacious sort. 

The Meath landscape, if not varied and picturesque, is extremely 
rich and pleasant; and we took some drives along tlie banks of 
the Boyne — to the noble park of Slane (still sacred to the memory 
of George IV., who actually condescended to pass some days there), 
and to Trim — of which the name occurs so often in Swift’s Journals, 
and where stands an enormous old castle that was inhabited by 
Prince John. It was taken from him by an Irish chief, our guide 
said ; and from the Irish chief it was taken by Oliver Cromwell. 
O’Thuselah was the Irish chief’s name no doubt. 

Here too stands, in the midst of one of the most Avretched 
towns in Ireland, a pillar erected in honour of the Duke of 
Wellington by the gentry of his native country. His birthplace, 
Dangan, lies not far off. And as we saw the hero’s statue, a flight 
of birds had hovered about it ; there was one on each epaulette 
and two on his marshal’s staff. Besides these wonders, we saAv a 
certain number of beggars ; and a madman, Avho was Avalking round 
a mound and preaching a sermon on grace; and a little child’s 
funeral came passing through the dismal toAvn, the only stirring 
thing in it (the coffin AA^as laid on a one-horse country car — a little 
deal box, in Avhich the poor child lay — and a great troop of people 
followed the humble procession) ; and the innkeeper, AA'ho had caught 
a few stray gentlefolk in a toAvn Avhere travellers must be rare ; and 
in liis inn — which is more gaunt and miserable than the toAvn itself, 
and which is by no means rendered more cheerful because sundry 
theological works are left for the rare frequenters in the coffee-room — 
the innkeeper brought in a bill which Avould have been worthy of 
Long’s, and which was paid with much grumbling on both sides. 


THE NANNY’S WATER 


505 


It would not be a bad rule for the traveller in Ireland to avoid 
those inns where theological works are left in the coffee-room. He 
is pretty sure to be made to pay very dearly for these religious 
privileges. 

We waited for the coach at the beautiful lodge and gate of 
Annsbrook; and one of the sons of the house coming up, invited 
us to look at the domain, which is as pretty and neatly ordered as 
— as any in England. It is hard to use this comparison so often, 
and must make Irish hearers angry. Can’t one see a neat house 
and grounds without instantly thinking that they are worthy of 
the sister country ; and implying, in our cool way, its superiority 
to everywhere else 1 Walking in this gentleman’s grounds, I told 
him, in the simplicity of my heart, that the neighbouring country 
was like Warwickshire, and the grounds as good as any English 
park. Is it the fact that English grounds are superior, or only that 
Englishmen are disposed to consider them so 1 

A pretty little twining river, called the Nanny’s Water, runs 
through the park : there is a legend about that, as about other 
places. Once upon a time (ten thousand years ago). Saint Patrick 
being thirsty as he passed by this country, came to the house of 
an old woman, of whom he asked a drink of milk. The old woman 

brought it to his reverence with the best of welcomes, and here 

it is a great mercy that the Belfast mail comes up, whereby the 
reader is spared the rest of the history. 

The Belfast mail had only to carry us five miles to Drogheda, 
but, in revenge, it made us pay three shillings for the five miles ; 
and again, by way of compensation, it carried us over five miles of 
a country that was worth at least five shillings to see — not romantic 
or especially beautiful, but having the best of all beauty — a quiet, 
smiling, prosperous, unassuming, work-day look, that in views and 
landscapes most good judges admire. Hard by Nanny’s Water, we 
came to Duleek Bridge, where, I was told, stands an old residence 
of the De Dath family, who were, moreover, builders of the pictu- 
resque old bridge. 

The road leads over a wide green common, which puts one in 

mind of Eng (a plague on it, there is the comparison again !), 

and at the end of the common lies the village among trees : a 
beautiful and peaceful sight. In the background there \vas a tall 
ivy-covered old tower, looking noble and imposing, but a ruin and 
useless ; then there was a church, and next to it a chapel — the very 
same sun was shining upon both. The chapel and church were 
connected by a farmyard, and a score of golden ricks were in the 
background, the churches in unison, and the people (typified by 
the corn-ricks) flourishing at the feet of both. May one ever hope 


506 


THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK 


to see the day in Ireland when this little landscape allegory shall 
find a general application ? 

For some way after leaving Diileek the road and the country 
round continue to wear the agreeable cheerful look just now lauded. 
You pass by a house where James II. is said to have slept the 
night before the battle of the Boyne (he took care to sleep far 
enough off on the night after), and also by an old red-brick hall 
standing at the end of an old chace or terrace-avenue, that runs 
for about a mile down to the house, and finishes at a moat towards 
the road. But as the coach arrives near Drogheda, and in the 
boulevards of that town, all resemblance to England is lost. Up 
hill and down, we pass low rows of filthy cabins in dirty undulations. 
Parents are at the cabin-doors dressing the hair of ragged children ; 
shockheads of girls peer out from the black circumference of smoke, 
and children inconceivably filthy yell wildly and vociferously as the 
coach passes by. One little ragged savage rushed furiously up the 
hill, speculating upon permission to put on the drag-chain at de- 
scending, and hoping for a halfpenny rew^ard. He put on the 
chain, but the guard did not give a halfpenny. I flung him one, 
and the boy rushed wildly after the carriage, holding it up with 
joy. “ The man inside has given me one,” says he, holding it up 
exultingly to the guard. I flung out another (by-the-bye, and with- 
out any prejudice, the halfpence in Ireland are smaller than those 
of England), but when the child got this halfpenny, small as it was, 
it seemed to overpower him : the little man’s look of gratitude was 
worth a great deal more than the biggest penny ever struck. 

The town itself, which I had three-quarters of an liour to 
ramble through, is smoky, dirty, and lively. There was a great 
bustle in the black Main Street, and several good shops, though 
some of the houses were in a half state of ruin, and battered 
shutters closed many of the windows where formerly had been 
“ emporiums,” “ repositories,” and other grandly-titled abodes of 
small commerce. Exhortations to “ repeal ” were liberally plastered 
on the blackened walls, proclaiming some past or promised visit 
of the “great agitator.” From the bridge is a good bustling 
spectacle of the river and the craft; the quays were grimy with 
the discharge of the coal-vessels that lay alongside them ; the ware- 
houses were not less black ; the seamen and porters loitering on the 
quay were as swarthy as those of Puddledock ; numerous fiictories 
and chimneys were vomiting huge clouds of black smoke : the 
commerce of the town is stated by the Guide-book to be consider- 
able, and increasing of late years. Of one part of its manufactures 
every traveller must speak with gratitude — of the ale namely, which 
is as good as the best brewed in the sister kingdom. Drogheda 


CROMWELL’S MOUNT 


507 


ale is to be drunk all over Ireland in the bottled state : candour 
calls for the acknowledgment that it is equally praiseworthy in 
draught. And while satisfying himself of this fact, the philosophic 
observer cannot but ask why ale should not be as good elsewhere 
as at Drogheda : is the water of the Boyne the only water in 
Ireland whereof ale can be made ? 

Above the river and craft, and the smoky quays of the town, 
the hills rise abruptly, up which innumerable cabins clamber. On 
one of them, by a church, is a round tower, or fort, with a flag : 
the church is the successor of one battered down by Cromwell in 
1649, in his frightful siege of the place. The place of one of his 
batteries is still marked outside the town, and known as “ Crom- 
well’s Mount ” : here he “ made the breach assaultable, and, by the 
help of Cod, stormed it.” He chose the strongest point of the 
defence for his attack. 

After being twice beaten back, by the divine assistance he 
was enabled to succeed in a third assault : he “ knocked on the 
head ” all the officers of the garrison ; he gave orders that none of 
the men should be spared. “ I think,” says he, “ that night we 
put to the sword two thousand men ; and one hundred of them 
having taken possession of St. Peter’s steeple and a round tower 
next the gate, called St. Sunday’s, I ordered the steeple of St. 
Peter’s to be fired, when one in the flames was heard to say, ‘ God 
confound me, I burn, I burn ! ’ ” The Lord General’s history of 
“this great mercy vouchsafed to us” concludes with appropriate 
religious reflections ; and prays Mr. Speaker of the House of 
Commons to remember that “ it is good that God alone have all 
the glory.” Is not the recollection of this butchery almost enough 
to make an Irishman turn rebel"? 

When troops marched over the bridge, a young friend of mine 
(whom I shrewdly suspected to be an Orangeman in his heart) 
told me that their bands played the “ Boyne Water.” Here is 
another legend of defeat for the Irishman to muse upon ; and here 
it was, too, that King Richard II. received the homage of four 
Irish kings, who flung their skenes or daggers at his feet and knelt 
to him, and were wonder-stricken by the richness of his tents and 
the garments of his knights and ladies. I think it is in Lingard 
that the story is told ; and the antiquary has no doubt seen that 
beautiful old m.anuscript at the British Museum where these yellow- 
mantled warriors are seen riding down to the King, splendid in 
his forked beard, and peaked shoes, and long dangling scolloped 
sleeves and embroidered gown. 

The Boyne winds picturesquely round two sides of the town, 
and following it, we came to the Linen Hall, — in the days of the 


508 


THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK 


linen manufacture a place of note, now the place where Mr. 
O’Connell harangues the people ; but all the windows of the house 
were barricaded when we passed it, and of linen or any other sort 
of merchandise there seemed to be none. Three boys were running 
past it with a mouse tied to a string and a dog galloping after ; two 
little children were paddling down the street, one saying to the 
other, “ Once I had a halfpenny^ and bought apples with it.” 
The barges were lying lazily on the river, on the opposite side of 
which was a wood of a gentleman’s domain, over which the rooks 
were cawing; and by the shore were some ruins — -“where Mr. 
Ball once had his kennel of hounds” — touching reminiscence of 
former prosperity ! 

There is a very large and ugly Roman Catholic chapel in the 
town, and a smaller one of better construction : it was so crowded, 
however, although on a week-day, that we could not pass beyond 
the chapel-yard — wdiere were great crowds of people, some praying, 
some talking, some buying and selling. There were two or three 
stalls in the yard, such as one sees near Continental churches, pre- 
sided over by old women, with a store of little brass crucifixes, 
beads, books, and bdnitiers for the faithful to purchase. The 
church is large and commodious within, and looks (not like all 
other churches in Ireland) as if it were frequented. There is a 
hideous stone monument in the churchyard representing two corpses 
half rotted away : time or neglect had battered away the inscrip- 
tion, nor could we see the dates of some older tombstones in the 
ground, which were mouldering away in the midst of nettles and 
rank grass on the wall. 

By a large public school of some reputation, where a hundred 
boys were educated (my young guide the Orangeman was one of 
them : he related with much glee how, on one of the Liberator’s 
visits, a schoolfellow had waved a blue and orange flag from the 
window and cried, “King William for ever, and to hell with the 
Pope ! ”), there is a fine old gate leading to the river, and in 
excellent preservation, in spite of time and Oliver Cromwell. It is a 
good specimen of Irish architecture. By this time that exceedingly 
slow coach the “Newry Lark” had arrived at that exceedingly 
filthy inn where the mail had dropped us an hour before. An 
enormous Englishman was holding a vain combat of wit with a 
brawny grinning beggar-woman at the door. “There’s a clever 
gentleman,” says the beggar-woman. “Sure he’ll give me some-' 
thing.” “How much should you likel” says the Englishman, 
with playful jocularity. “ Musha,” says she, “ many a Hitler 
man nor you has given me a shilling.” The coach drives away ; 
the lady had clearly the best of the joking-match ; but I did 


A PEACEFUL SMILING DISTRICT 509 

not see, for all that, that the Englishman gave her a single 
farthing. 

From Castle Bellingham — as famous for ale as Drogheda, and 
remarkable likewise for a still better thing than ale, an excellent 
resident proprietress, whose fine park lies by the road, and by 
whose care and taste the village has been rendered one of the most 
neat and elegant I have yet seen in Ireland — the road to Dundalk 
is exceedingly picturesque, and the traveller has the pleasure of 
feasting his eyes with the noble line of Mourne Mountains, which 
rise before him while he journeys over a level country for several 
miles. The “Newry Lark,” to be sure, disdained to take advantage 
of the easy roads to accelerate its movements in any way ; but the 
aspect of the country is so pleasant that one can afford to loiter 
over it. The fields were yellow with the stubble of the corn — 
which in this, one of the chief corn counties of Ireland, had just 
been cut down ; and a long straggling line of neat farmhouses and 
cottages runs almost the whole way from Castle Bellingham to 
Dundalk. For nearly a couple of miles of the distance the road 
runs along the picturesque flat called Lurgan Green ; and gentle- 
men’s residences and parks are numerous along the road, and one 
seems to have come amongst a new race of people, so trim are the 
cottages, so neat the gates and hedges, in this peaceful smiling 
district. The people, too, show signs of the general prosperity. 
A national-school had just dismissed its female scholars as we passed 
through Dunlar ; and though the children had most of them bare 
feet, their clothes were good and clean, their faces rosy and bright, 
and their long hair as shiny and as nicely combed as young ladies’ 
need to be. Numerous old castles and towers stand on the road 
here and there ; and long before we entered Dundalk we had a sight 
of a huge factory-chimney in the town, and of the dazzling white 
w'alls of the Roman Catholic church lately erected there. Tlie 
cabin-suburb is not great, and the entrance to the town is much 
adorned by the hospital — a handsome Elizabethan building — and a 
row of houses of a similar architectural style which lie on the left 
of the traveller. 


CHAPTER XXVI 


DUNDALK 


HE stranger can’t fail to be struck with the look of Dundalk, 



as he has been with the villages and country leading to it, 


^ when contrasted with places in the South and West of 
Ireland. The coach stopped at a cheerful-looking Place, of which 
almost the only dilapidated mansion was the old inn at which it 
discharged us, and which did not hold out much prospect of 
comfort. But in justice to the “ King’s Arms,” it must be said 
that good beds and dinners are to be obtained there by voyagers ; 
and if they choose to arrive on days when his Grace the Most 
Reverend the Lord Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of Ireland 
is dining with his clergy, the house of course is crowded, and the 
waiters, and the boy who carries in the potatoes, a little hurried 
and flustered. When their reverences were gone, the laity were 
served ; and I have no doubt, from the leg of a duck which I got, 
that the breast and wings must have been very tender. 

Meanwhile tlie walk was pleasant tlirough the bustling little 
town. A grave old church with a tall copper spire defends one end 
of the Main Street ; and a little way from the inn is the superb 
new chapel, which the architect, Mr. Duff, has copied from King’s 
College Chapel in Cambridge. The ornamental part of the interior 
is not yet completed ; but the area of the chapel is spacious and 
noble, and three handsome altars of scagliola (or some composition 
resembling marble) have been erected, of handsome and suitable 
form. When by the aid of furtlier subscriptions the churcli shall 
be completed, it will be one of the handsomest places of worship 
the Roman Catholics possess in this country. Opposite the chapel 
stands a neat low black building — the gaol ; in the middle of the 
building, and over the doorway, is an ominous balcony and window, 
with an iron beam overhead. Each end of the beam is ornamented 
with a grinning iron skull ! Is this the hanging-place ? and do 
these grinning cast-iron skulls facetiously explain the business for 
which the beam is there For shame ! for shame ! Such disgust- 
ing emblems ought no longer to disgrace a Christian land. If kill 
we must, let us do so with as much despatcli and decency as 


MR. SHEKELTON’S FACTORY 


511 


possible, — not brazen out our misdeeds and perpetuate them in this 
frightful satiric way. 

A far better cast-iron emblem stands over a handsome shop in 
the “ Place ” hard by — a plough namely, wliich figures over the 
factory of Mr. Shekelton, whose industry and skill seem to have 
brought the greatest benefit to his fellow-townsmen — of whom he 
employs numbers in his foundries and workshops. This gentleman 
was kind enough to show me through his manufactories, where all 
sorts of iron-works are made, from a steam-engine to a door-key ; 
and I saw everything to admire, and a vast deal more than I couhl 
understand, in the busy, cheerful, orderly, bustling, clanging place. 
Steam-boilers were hammered here, and pins made by a hundred 
busy hands in a manufactory above. There was the engine-room, 
where the monster was whirring his ceaseless wheels and directing 
the whole operations of the factory, fanning the forges, turning the 
drills, blasting into the pipes of the smelting-houses : he had a 
liouse to himself, from which his orders issued to the different 
establishments round about. One machine was quite awful to me, 
a gentle cockney, not used to such things : it was an iron-devourer, 
a wretch with huge jaws and a narrow mouth, ever opening and 
shutting — opening and shutting. You put a half-inch iron plate 
between his jaws, and they shut not a whit slower or quicker than 
before, and bit through the iron as if it were a sheet of paper. 
Below the monster’s mouth was a punch that performed its duties 
with similar dreadful calmness. 

I was so lucky as to have an introduction to the Vicar of 
Dundalk, which that gentleman’s kind and generous nature inter- 
preted into a claim for unlimited hospitality; and he was good 
enough to consider himself bound not only to receive me, but to 
give up previous engagements abroad in order to do so. I need not 
say that it afforded me sincere pleasure to witness, for a couple of 
days, his labours among his people ; and indeed it was a delightful 
occupation to watch both flock and pastor. The world is a wicked, 
selfish, abominable place, as the parson tells us : but his reverence 
comes out of his pulpit and gives the flattest contradiction to his 
doctrine : busying himself with kind actions from morning till 
night, denying to himself, generous to others, preaching the truth 
to young and old, clothing the naked, feeding the hungry, consoling 
the wretched, and giving hope to the sick ; — and I do not mean to 
say that this sort of life is led by the Vicar of Dundalk merely, but 
do firmly believe that it is the life of the great majority of the 
Protestant and Roman Catholic clergy of the country. There will 
be no breach of confidence, I hope, in publishing here the journal of 
a couple of days spent with one of these reverend gentlemen, and 


512 


THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK 


telling some readers, as idle and profitless as the writer, what the 
clergyman’s peaceful labours are. 

In the first place, we set out to visit the church — the comfort- 
able copper-spired old edifice that was noticed two pages back. It 
stands in a green churchyard of its own, very neat and trimly kept, 
with an old row of trees that were dropping their red leaves uj)on 
a flock of vaults and tombstones below. The building being much 
injured by flame and time, some hundred years back was repaired, 
enlarged, and ornamented — as churches in those days were orna- 
mented — and has consequently lost a good deal of its Gothic 
character. There is a great mixture, therefore, of old style and 
new style and no style : but, with all this, the church is one of 
the most commodious and best appointed I have seen in Ireland. 
The vicar held a council with a builder regarding some ornaments 
for the roof of the church, which is, as it should be, a great object 
of his care and architectural taste, and on which he has spent a 
very large sum of money. To these expenses he is in a manner 
bound, for the living is a considerable one, its income being no less 
than two hundred and fifty pounds a year ; out of which he has 
merely to maintain a couple of curates and a clerk and sexton, to 
contribute largely towards schools and hospitals, and relieve a few 
scores of pensioners of his own, who are fitting objects of private 
bounty. 

We went from the chureh to a school, which has been long 
a favourite resort of the good vicar’s : indeed, to judge from the 
schoolmaster’s books, his attendance there is almost daily, and the 
number of the scholars some two hundred. The number was con- 
siderably greater until the schools of the Educational Board were 
established, when the Roman Catholic clergymen withdrew many of 
their young people from Mr. Thackeray’s establishment. 

We found a large room with sixty or seventy boys at work ; 
in an upper chamber were a considerable number of girls, with 
their teachers, two modest and pretty young women ; but the 
favourite resort of the vicar was evidently the Infant-School, — 
and no wonder : it is impossible to witness a more beautiful or 
touching sight. 

Eighty of these little people, healthy, clean, and rosy — some 
in smart gowns and shoes and stockings, some with patched 
pinafores and little bare pink feet — sate upon a half-dozen low 
benches, and were singing, at the top of their four-score fresh voices, 
a song when we entered. All the voices were hushed as the vicar 
came in, and a great bobbing and curtseying took place ; whilst a 
hundred and sixty innocent eyes turned awfully towards the clergy- 
man, who tried to look as unconcerned as possible, and began to 


DUNDALK INFANT-SCHOOL 


513 


make his little ones a speech. “ I have brought,” says he, “ a 
gentleman from England, who has heard of my little children and 
their school, and hopes he will carry away a good account of it. 
Now, you know, we must all do our best to be kind and civil to 
strangers : what can we do here for this gentleman that he would 
like ? — do you think he Avould like a song ? ” 

All the Children . — “ We’ll sing to him ! ” 

Then the schoolmistress, coming forward, sang the first words of 
a hymn, which at once eighty little voices took up, or near eighty — 
for some of the little things were too young to sing yet, and all they 
could do was to beat the measure with little red hands as the 
others sang. It was a hymn about heaven, with a chorus of “ Oh, 
that will be joyful, joyful!” and one of the verses beginning, “ Little 
children will be there.” Some of my fair readers (if I have the 
honour to find such) who have been present at similar tender charm- 
ing concerts, know the hymn, no doubt. It was the first time I 
had ever heard it ; and I do not care to own that it brought tears 
to my eyes, though it is ill to parade such kind of sentiment in 
print. But I think I will never, while I live, forget that little 
chorus, nor would any man who has ever loved a child or lost 
one. God bless you, 0 little happy singers ! What a noble and 
useful life is his, who, in place of seeking wealth or honour, devotes 
his life to such a service as this ! And all through our country, 
thank God ! in quiet humble corners, that busy citizens and men 
of the world never hear of, there are thousands of such men em- 
ployed in such holy pursuits, with no reward beyond that which 
the fulfilment of duty brings them. Most of these children were 
Roman Catholics. At this tender age the priests do not care to 
separate them from their little Protestant brethren : and no wonder. 
He must be a child-murdering Herod who would find the heart 
to do so. 

After the hymn, tlie children went through a little Scripture 
catechism, answering very correctly, and all in a breath, as the 
mistress put the questions. Some of them were, of course, too 
young to understand the words they uttered ; but the answers are 
so simple that they cannot fail to understand them before long; 
and they learn in spite of themselves. 

The catechism being ended, another song was sung; and now 
the vicar (who had been humming the chorus along with his young 
singers, and, in spite of an awful and grave countenance, could not 
help showing his extreme happiness) made another oration, in which 
he stated that the gentleman from England was perfectly satisfied ; 
that he would have a good report of the Dundalk children to carry 
home with him ; that the day was very fine, and the schoolmistress 
5 2 k 


514 


THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK 


would probably like to take a walk ; and, finally, would the young 
people give her a holiday? “As many,” concluded he, “as will 
give the schoolmistress a holiday, hold up their hands ! ” This 
question was carried unanimously. 

But I am bound to say, w'hen the little people were told that 
as many as ivouldnH like a holiday were to hold up their hands, 
all the little hands went up again exactly as before : by which it 
may be concluded either that the infants did not understand his 
reverence’s speech, or that they were just as happy to stay at 
school as to go and play ; and the reader may adopt whichever of 
the reasons he inclines to. It is probable that both are correct. 

The little things are so fond of the school, the vicar told me 
as we walked away from it, that on returning home they like 
nothing better than to get a number of their companions who don’t 
go to school, and to play at infant-school. 

They may be heard singing their hymns in the narrow alleys 
and humble houses in which they dwell : and I was told of one 
dying who sang his song of “ Oh, that will be joyful, joyful ! ” to 
his poor mother weeping at his bedside, and promising her that 
they should meet where no parting should be. 

“There was a child in the school,” said the vicar, “whose 
father, a Roman Catholic, was a carpenter by trade, a good work- 
man, and earning a considerable weekly sum, but neglecting his 
wife and children and spending his earnings in drink. We liave 
a song against drunkenness that the infants sing ; and one evening, 
going home, the child found her father excited with liquor and 
ill-treating his wife. The little thing forthvdth interposed between 
them, told her father what she had heard at school regarding the 
criminality of drunkenness and quarrelling, and finished her little 
sermon with the hymn. The father was first amused, then touched ; 
and the end of it was that he kissed his wife, and asked her to 
forgive him, hugged his child, and from that day would always 
have her in his bed, made her sing to him morning and night, and 
forsook his old haunts for the sake of his little companion.” 

He was quite sober and prosperous for eight months ; but the 
vicar at the end of that time began to remark that the child looked 
ragged at school, and passing by her mother’s house, saw the poor 
woman with a black eye. “If it was any one but your husband, 

Mrs. C •, who gave you that black eye,” says the vicar, “ tell 

me ; but if he did it, don’t say a word.” The woman was silent, 

and soon after, meeting her husband, the vicar took him to task. 

“You were sober for eight months. Now tell me fairly, C ,” 

says he, “were you happier when you lived at home with your 

wife and child, or are you more happy now?” The man owned 


DUNDALK COUNTY HOSPITAL 


515 


that he was much happier formerly, and the end of the conversation 
was that he promised to go home once more and try the sober life 
again, and he went home and succeeded. 

The vicar continued to hear good accounts of him ; but passing 
one day by his house he saAv the wife there looking very sad. 
“Had her husband relapsed?” — “No, he was dead,” she said — 
“ dead of the cholera ; but he had been sober ever since his last con- 
versation with the clergyman, and had done his duty to his family 
up to the time of his death.” “I said to the woman,” said the 
good old clergyman, in a grave low voice, “ ‘ Your husband is gone 
now to the place where, according to his conduct here, his eternal 
reward will be assigned him ; and let us be thankful to think what 
a different position he occupies now to that which he must have 
held had not his little girl been the means under God of con- 
verting him.’ ” 

Our next walk was to the County Hospital, the handsome 
edifice whicli ornaments the Drogheda entrance of the town, and 
which I had remarked on my arrival. Concerning this hospital, 
the governors were, when I passed through Dundalk, in a state 

of no small agitation : for a gentleman by the name of , who, 

from being an apothecary’s assistant in the place, had gone forth 
as a sort of amateur inspector of hospitals throughout Ireland, had 
thought fit to censure their extravagance in erecting the new 
building, stating that the old one was fully sufficient to hold fifty 
patients, and that the public money might consequently have been 

spared. Mr. ’s plan for the better maintenance of them in 

general is, that commissioners should be appointed to direct them, 
and not county gentlemen as heretofore; the discussion of which 
question does not need to be carried on in this humble work. 

My guide, who is one of the governors of the new hospital, 
conducted me in the first place to the old one — a small dirty house 
ill a damp and low situation, with but three rooms to accommodate 
patients, and these evidently not fit to hold fifty, or even fifteen 
patients. The new hospital is one of the handsomest buildings of 
the size and kind in Ireland — an ornament to the to^vn, as the angry 
commissioner stated, but not after all a building of undue cost, for 
the expense of its erection was but £3000 ; and the sick of the 
county are far better accommodated in it than in the damp and 
unwliolesome tenement regretted by the eccentric commissioner. 

An English architect, Mr. Smith, of Hertford, designed and 
completed the edifice; strange to say, only exceeding his estimates 
by the sum of three-and-sixpence, as the worthy governor of the 
hospital with great triumph told me. The building is certainly a 
wonder of cheapness, and, what is more, so complete for the purpose 


516 


THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK 


for which it was intended, and so handsome in appearance, that the 
architect’s name deserves to be published by all who hear it ; and if 
any country newspaper editors should notice this volume, they are 
requested to make the fact known. The house is provided with 
every convenience for men and women, with all the appurtenances 
of baths, water, gas, airy wards, and a garden for convalescents ; 
and, below, a dispensary, a handsome board-room, kitchen, and 
matron’s apartments, &c. Indeed, a noble requiring a house for a 
large establishment need not desire a handsomer one than this, at its 
moderate price of <£3000. The beauty of this building has, as is 
almost always the case, created emulation, and a terrace in the same 
taste has been raised in the neighbourhood of the hospital. 

From the hospital we bent our steps to the Institution ; of 
which place I give below the rules, and a copy of the course of 
study, and the dietary : leaving English parents to consider the 
fact, that their children can be educated at this place for thirteen 
l^ounds a year. Nor is there anything in the establishment 
savouring of the Dotheboys Hall.* I never saw, in any public 
school in England, sixty cleaner, smarter, more gentlemanlike boys 
than' were here at work. The upper class had been at work on 
Euclid as we came in, and were set, by way of amusing the stranger, 
to perform a sum of compound interest of diabolical complication, 
which, with its algebraic and arithmetical solution, was handed up 
to me by three or four of the pupils ; and I strove to look as wise 
as I possibly could. Then they went through questions of mental 
arithmetic with astonishing correctness and facility; and finding 

* “ Boarders are received from the age of eight to fourteen at £12 per 
annum, and £1 for washing, paid quarterly in advance. 

“ Day scholars are received from the age of ten to twelve at £2, paid 
quarterly in advance. 

‘•'The Incorporated Society have abundant cause for believing that the 
introduction of Boarders into their Establishments has produced far more 
advantageous results to the public than they could, <‘it so early a period, have 
anticipated ; and that the election of boys to their Foundations only after a 
fair competition with others of a given district, has had the effect of stimu- 
lating masters and scholars to exertion and study, and promises to operate 
most beneficially for the advancement of religious and general knowledge. 

“The districts for eligible Candidates are as follow : — 

“Dundalk Institution embraces the counties of Louth and Down, because 
the properties which support it lie in this district. 

“The Pococke Institution, Kilkenn}^ embraces the counties of Kilkenny 
and Waterford, for the same cause. 

“The Kanelagh Institution, the towns of Athlone and Roscommon, and 
three districts in the counties of Galway and Roscommon, which the Incor- 
porated Society hold in fee, or from which they receive impropriate tithes. 

(Signed) “ Caesar Otway, Secretary.” 


DUNDALK INSTITUTION 517 

from the master that classics were not taught in the school, I 
took occasion to lament this circumstance, saying, with a know- 


Arrangement of School Business in Dundalk Institution. 


Hours, 


6 to 7 

7 „ 7i 

7i.. SI 
\ „ 9 

I 9 „ 10 

1 10 „ m 

I m „ lu 

i 

I 111,, 12 
i 12 „ 122 

i 12| ,, 2 
2 „ 21 

I 2^ ,, 5 
5 „ 7| 
7|„ 8 

8 ,, 82 

Sh „ 9 
9 


Monday, j Tuesday and Thursday, i Saturday. 


Rise, wash, &;c. 

( Scripture by the 
I Master, and prayer. 

( Reading, History, 
t &c. 

Breakfast. 

Play. 

English Grammar. 
Algebra. 

\ 

Scripture. 

Writing. 

{ Arithmeticat Desks, 
and Book - keep- 
ing. 

Dinner. 


Play. 

{ Spelling, Mental 
Arithmetic, and 
Euclid, 

Supper. 

Exercise. 

{ Scripture by the 
Master, and prayer 
in Schoolroom. 
Retire to bed. 


Rise, wash, &c. 

( Scripture by the 
\ Master, and prayer. 

( Reading, History, 
( &c. 

Breakfast. 

Play. 

Geography, 

Euclid. 

{ Lecture on prin- 
ciples of Arith- 
metic. 

Writing. 

Mensuration. 

Dinner. 


Play. 

Spelling, Mentali 
Arithmetic, and 
Euclid. 

Supper. I 

Exercise. 

Scripture by the j 
Master, and prayer 
in Schoolroom. 
Retire to bed. 


Rise, wash, &c. 
Scripture by the 
Master, and 
prayer. 

Reading, His- 
tory, &c. 
Breakfast. 

Play. 

10 to 11, repeti- 
tion. 

11 to 12, Use of 
■ Globes. 

12 to 1, Catechism 
and Scripture 
by the Cate- 
chist. 

Dinner. 

The remainder of 
this day is de- 
voted to exer- 
cise till the hour 
of Supper, after 
which the Boys 
assemble in the 
Schoolroom and 
hear a portion of 
Scripture read 
and explained by 
the Master, as 
on other days, 
and conclude 
with prayer. 


The sciences of Navigation and practical Surveying are taught in the Establish- 
ment ; also a selection of the Pupils, who have a taste for it, are instructed in 
the art of Drawing. 


Dietary. 

Breakfast.— -Stirabout and Milk, every Morning. 

Dinner.— On Sunday and Wednesday, Potatoes and Beef ; 10 ounces of the 
latter to each boy. On Monday and Thursday, Bread and Broth ; J lb. of the 
former to each boy. On Tuesday, Friday, and Saturday, Potatoes and Milk ; 
2 lbs. of the former to each boy. 

Supper.— Alb. of Bread with Milk, uniformly, e.xcept on Monday and Thursday: 
on these days. Potatoes and Milk. 


518 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK 

iiig air, that I would like to have examined the lads in a Greek 
play. 

Classics, then, these young fellows do not get. Meat they get 
but twice a week. Let English parents bear this fact in mind ; but 
that the lads are healthy and happy, anybody who sees them can 
have no question ; furthermore, they are well instructed in a sound 
practical education — history, geography, mathematics, religion. 
What a place to know of would this be for many a poor half-pay 
officer, where he may put his children in all confidence that they 
will be well cared for and soundly educated ! Why have we not 
State-schools in England, where, for the prime cost — for a sum 
which never need exceed for a young boy’s maintenance £25 a year 
— our children might be brought up”? We are establishing national 
schools for the labourer : why not give education to the sons of the 
poor gentry — the clergyman whose pittance is small, and would 
still give his son the benefit of a public education; the artist, the 
officer, the merchant’s office-clerk, the literary man ? What a benefit 
might be conferred upon all of us if honest charter-schools could 
be established for our children, and where it would be impossible for 
Squeers to make a profit ! * 

Our next day’s journey led us, by half-past ten o’clock, to the 
ancient town of Louth, a little poor village now, but a great seat of 
learning and piety, it is said, formerly, where there stood a univer- 
sity and abbeys, and where Saint Patrick worked wonders. Here 
my kind friend the rector was called upon to marry a smart sergeant 
of police to a pretty lass, one of the few Protestants who attend his 
church; and, the ceremony over, we were invited to tlie house of 
the bride’s father hard by, where the clergyman was bound to cut 
the cake and drink a glass of wine to the health of the new-married 
couple. There was evidently to be a dance and some merriment in 
the course of the evening; for the good mother of the bride (oh, 
blessed is lie who has a good mother-in-law !) was busy at a huge 
fire in the little kitchen, and along the road we met various parties of 
neatly-dressed people, and several of the sergeant’s comrades, who 
were hastening to the wedding. The mistress of the rector’s darling 
Infant-School was one of the bridesmaids : consequently the little 
ones had a holiday. 

But lie was not to be disappointed of his Infant-School in this 

* The Proprietary Schools of late established have gone far to protect the 
interests of parents and children ; but the masters of these schools take 
boarders, and of course draw profits from them. Why make the learned man 
a beef-and-mutton contractor ? It would be easy to arrange the economy of 
a school so that there should be no possibility of a want of confidence, or of 
peculation, to the detriment of the pupil. 


LOUTH 


519 

manner : so, mounting the car again, with a fresh horse, we 
went a very pretty drive of three miles to the snug lone school- 
house of Glyde Farm — near a handsome park, I believe of the 
same name, where the proprietor is building a mansion of the Tudor 
order. 

The pretty scene of Dundalk was here played over again ; the 
children sang their little hymns, the good 'old clergyman joined 
delighted in the chorus, the holiday was given, and the little hands 
held up, and I looked at more clean bright faces and little rosy feet. 
The scene need not be repeated in print, but I can understand what 
pleasure a man must take in the daily witnessing of it, and in the 
growth of these little plants, which are set and tended by his care. 
As we returned to Louth, a woman met us with a curtsey and ex- 
pressed her sorrow that she had been obliged to withdraw her 
daughter from one of the rector’s schools, which the child was 
vexed at leaving !oo. But the orders of the priest were per- 
emptory; and who can say they were unjust 1 The priest, on his 
side, was only enforcing thfe rule which the parson maintains as 
his : — the latter will not permit his young flock to be educated 
except upon certain principles and by certain teachers ; the former 
has his own scruples unfortunately also — and so that noble and 
brotherly scheme of National Education falls to the ground. In 
Louth, the national school was standing by the side of the priest’s 
chapel ; it is so almost everywhere throughout Ireland : the Pro- 
testants have rejected, on very good motives doubtless, the chance 
of union which the Education Board gave them. Be it so : if the 
children of either sect be educated apart, so that they he educated, 
the education scheme will have produced its good, and the union will 
come afterwards. 

The church at Louth stands boldly upon a hill looking down 
on the village, and has nothing remarkable in it but neatness, 
except the monument of a former rector. Doctor Little, which 
attracts the spectator’s attention from the extreme inappropriateness 
of the motto on the coat-of-arms of the reverend defunct. It looks 
rather unorthodox to read in a Christian temple, where a man’s 
bones have the honour to lie — and where, if anywhere, humility 
is requisite — that there is multum in Parvo ! “ a great deal in 
Little.” 0 Little, in life you were not much, and lo ! you are less 
now: why should filial piety engrave that pert pun upon your 
monument, to cause people to laugh in a place where they ought 
to be grave ? The defunct doctor built a very handsome rectory- 
house, with a set of stables that would be useful to a nobleman, 
but are rather too commodious for a peaceful rector who does not 
ride to hounds; and it was in Little’s time, I believe, that the 


520 


THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK 

churcli was removed from the old abbey, where it formerly stood, 
to its present proud position on the hill. 

The abbey is a fine ruin, the windows of a good style, the 
tracings of carvings on many of them ; but a great number of stones 
and ornaments were removed formerly to build farm-buildings withal, 
and the place is now as rank and ruinous as the generality of Irish 
burying-places seem to be. Skulls lie in clusters amongst nettle-beds 
by the abbey- walls : graves are only partially covered with rude 
stones ; a fresh coffin was lying broken in pieces within the abbey ; and 
the surgeon of the dispensary hard by might procure subjects here, 
almost without grave-breaking. Hard by the abbey is a building of 
which I beg leave to offer the following interesting sketch : — 



The legend in the country goes that the place was built for the 
accommodation of “ Saint Murtogh,” who lying down to sleep 
here in the open fields, not having any place to house under, 
found to his surprise, on waking in the morning, the above 
edifice, which the angels had built. The angelic architecture, it 
will be seen, is of rather a rude kind ; and the village antiquary, 
who takes a pride in showing the place, says that the building was 
erected two thousand years ago. In the handsome grounds of the 
rectory is another spot visited by popular tradition — a fairy’s ring : 
a regular mound of some thirty feet in height, flat and even on the 
top, and provided with a winding path for the foot-passengers to 
ascend. Some trees grew on the mound, one of which was removed 
in order to make the walk. But the country-people cried out loudly 
at this desecration, and vowed that the “ little people ” had quitted 
the countryside for ever in consequence. 

While walking in the town, a woman meets the rector with a 
number of curtseys and compliments, and vows that “’tis your 
reverence is the friend of the poor, and may the Lord preserve you 
to us and lady ; ” and having poured out blessings innumerable, 
concludes by producing a paper for her son that’s in throuble in 
England. Tlie paper ran to the effect, that “We, the undersigned. 


A PETITIONER 


521 


inhabitants of the parish of Louth, have known Daniel Horgan 
ever since his youth, and can speak confidently as to his integrity, 
piety, and good conduct.” In fact, the paper stated that Daniel 
Horgan was an honour to his country, and consequently quite in- 
capable of the crime of — sack-stealing, I think — with which at 
present he was charged, and lay in prison in Durham Castle. The 
paper had, I should think, come down to the poor mother from 
Durham, with a direction ready written to despatch it back again 
when signed, and was evidently the work of one of those benevolent 
individuals in assize-towns, who, following the profession of the law, 
delight to extricate unhappy young men of whose innocence (from 
various six-and-eightpenny motives) they feel convinced. There 
stood the poor mother, as the rector examined the document, with 
a huge wafer in Iier hand, ready to forward it as soon as it was 
signed : for the truth is that “ We, the undersigned,” were as yet 
merely imaginary. 

“ You don’t come to church,” says the rector. “ I know nothing 
of you or your son : why don’t you go to the priest ? ” 

“Oh, your reverence, my son’s to be tried next Tuesday,” 
whimpered the woman. She then said tlie priest was not in the 
way, but, as we had seen him a few minutes before, recalled the 
assertion, and confessed that she had been to the priest and that 
he would not sign ; and fell to prayers, tears, and unbounded suppli- 
cations to induce the rector to give his signature. But that hard- 
hearted divine, stating that he had not known Daniel Horgan from 
his youth upwards, that he could not certify as to his honesty or 
dishonesty, enjoined the woman to make an attempt upon the R. C. 
curate, to whose liandwriting he would certify if need were. 

The upshot of the matter 'was that the woman returned with 
a certificate from the R. C. curate as to her son’s good behaviour 
while in the village, and the rector certified that the handwriting 
was that of the R. C. clergyman in question, and tlie woman popped 
her big red wafer into the letter and went her way. 

Tuesday is passed long ere this : Mr. Horgan’s guilt or innocence 
is long since clearly proved, and he celebrates the latter in freedom, 
or expiates the former at the mill. Indeed, I don’t know that there 
was any call to introduce his adventures to the public, except 
perhaps it may be good to see how in this little distant Irish village 
the blood of life is running. Here goes a happy party to a marriage, • 
and the parson prays a “ God bless you ! ” upon them, and the 
world begins for them. Yonder lies a stall-fed rector in his tomb, 
flaunting over his nothingness his pompous heraldic motto : and 
yonder lie the fresh fragments of a nameless deal coffin, which any 
foot may kick over. Presently you hear the clear voices of little 


522 


THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK 


children praising God ; and here comes a mother wringing her hands 
and asking for succour for her lad, who was a child but the other 
day. Such motus animorum atque hoec certamina tanta are going 
in an hour of an October day in a little pinch of clay in the county 
Louth. 

Perhaps, being in the moralising strain, the honest surgeon at 
the dispensary might come in as an illustration. He inhabits a 
neat humble house, a storey higher than his neighbours’, but with a 
thatched roof. He relieves a thousand patients yearly at the 
dispensary, he visits seven hundred in the parish, he supplies the 
medicines gratis ; and receiving for these services the sum of about 
one hundred pounds yearly, some county economists and calculators 
are loud against the extravagance of his salary, and threaten his 
removal. All these individuals and their histories we presently 
turn our backs upon, for, after all, dinner is at five o’clock, and we 
have to see the new road to Dundalk, which the county has lately 
been making. 

Of this undertaking, which shows some skilful engineering — 
some gallant cutting of rocks and hills, and filling of valleys, with 
a tall and handsome stone bridge thrown across the river, and 
connecting the higli embankments on which the new road at that 
place is formed — I can say little, except that it is a vast convenience 
to the county, and a great credit to the surveyor and contractor 
too ; for the latter, though a poor man, and losing heavily by his 
bargain, has yet refused to mulct his labourers of their wages ; and, 
as cheerfully as he can, still pays them their shilling a day. 


CHAPTER XXVII 


NEIFRY, ARMAGH, BELFAST— FROM DUHDALK TO NEWRY 
Y kind host gave orders to the small ragged boy that drove 



the car to take “ particular care of the little gentleman ” ; 


and the car-boy, grinning in appreciation of the joke, drove 
off at his best pace, and landed his cargo at Newry after a pleasant 
two hours’ drive. The country for the most part is wild, but not 
gloomy ; the mountains round about are adorned with woods and 
gentlemen’s seats ; and the car-boy pointed out one hill — that of 
Slievegullion, which kept us company all the way — as the highest 
hill in Ireland. Ignorant or deceiving car-boy ! I have seen a 
dozen hills, each the highest in Ireland, in my way through tlie 
country, of which the inexorable Guide-book gives the measurement 
and destroys the claim. Well, it was the tallest hill, in the estima- 
tion of the car-boy ; and in this respect the world is full of car-boys. 
Has not every mother of a family a Slievegullion of a son, who, 
according to her measurement, towers above all other sons h ' Is not 
the patriot, who believes himself equal to three Frenchmen, a car- 
boy in heart ? There was a kind young creature, with a child in 
her lap, that evidently held this notion. She paid the child a series 
of compliments, which would have led one to fancy he was an angel 
from heaven at the least ; and her husband sat gravely by, very 
silent, witli his arms round a barometer. 

Beyond these there were no incidents or chai-acters of note, ex- 
cept an old ostler that they said was ninety years old, and watered 
the horse at a lone inn on the road. “ Stop ! ” cries this wonder of 
years and rags, as the car, after considerable parley, got under way. 
The car-boy pulled up, thinking a fresh passenger was coming out 
of the inn. 

“ Stoj'i, till one of the (jentlemen gives me something f says the 
old man, coming slowly up with us : which speech created a laugh, 
and got him a penny : he received it without the least thankfulness, 
and went away grumbling to his pail. 

Xewry is remarkable as being the only town I have seen which 
had no cabin suburb : strange to say, the houses begin all at once, 
handsomely coated and hatted with stone and slate ; and if Dundalk 


524. 


THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK 


was prosperous, Newry is better still. Such a sight of neatness 
and comfort is exceedingly welcome to an English traveller, who, 
moreover, finds himself, after driving through a plain bustling clean 
street, landed at a large plain comfortable inn, where business seems 
to be done, where there are smart waiters to receive him, and a 
comfortable warm coffee-room that bears no traces of dilapidation. 

What the merits of the cuisine may be I can’t say for the 
information of travellers ; a gentleman to whom I had brought a 
letter from Dundalk taking care to provide me at his own table, 
accompanying me previously to visit the lions of the town. A river 
divides it, and tlie counties of Armagh and Down : the river runs 
into the sea at Carlingford Bay, and is connected by a canal with 
Lough Neagh, and thus with the North of Ireland. Steamers to 
Liverpool and Glasgow sail continually. There are mills, foundries, 
and manufactories, of which the Guide-book will give particulars ; 
and the town of 13,000 inhabitants is the busiest and most thriving 
that I have yet seen in Ireland. 

Our first walk was to the church ; a large and handsome 
building, although built in the unlucky period when the Gothic 
style was coming into vogue. Hence one must question the pro- 
priety of many of the ornaments, though the whole is massive, well- 
finished, and stately. Near the church stands the Roman Catholic 
chapel, a very fine building, the work of the same architect, Mr. 
Duff, who erected the chapel at Dundalk ; but, like almost all other 
edifices of the kind in Ireland that I have seen, the interior is quite 
unfinished, and already so dirty and ruinous, that one would think 
a sort of genius for dilapidation must have been exercised in order 
to bring it to its present condition. There are tattered green-baize 
doors to enter at, a dirty clay floor, and cracked plaster walls, with 
an injunction to the public not to spit on the floor. Maynooth 
itself is scarcely more dreary. The architect’s work, however, does 
him the highest credit : the interior of the church is noble and 
simple in style ; and one can’t but grieve to see a fine work of art, 
that might have done good to the country, so defaced and ruined 
as this is. 

The Newry poorhouse is as neatly ordered and comfortable as 
any house, public or private, in Ireland : the same look of health 
which was so pleasant to see among the Naas children of the union- 
house was to be remarked here : the same care and comfort for the 
old people. Of able-bodied there were but few in the house : it is 
in winter that there are most applicants for this kind of relief; the 
sunshine attracts the women out of the place, and the harvest re- 
lieves it of the men. Cleanliness, the matron said, is more intoler- 
able to most of the inmates than any other regulation of the house ; 


ARMAGH 


525 


and instantly on quitting the house they relapse into their darling 
dirt, and of course at their periodical return are subject to the 
unavoidable initiatory lustration. 

Newry has many comfortable and handsome public buildings : 
the Streets have a business-like look, the shops and people are not 
too poor, and the southern grandiloquence is not shown here in the 
shape of fine words for small wares. Even the beggars are not so 
numerous, I fancy, or so coaxing and wheedling in their talk. 
Perhaps, too, among the gentry the same moral change may be 
remarked, and they seem more downright and plain in their manner ; 
but one must not pretend to speak of national characteristics from 
such a small experience as a couple of evenings’ intercourse 
may give. 

Although not equal in natural beauty to a hundred other routes 
which the traveller takes in the South, the ride from Newry to 
Armagh is an extremely pleasant one, on account of the undeniable 
increase of i)rosperity which is visible through the country. Well- 
tilled fields, neat farmhouses, well-dressed people, meet one every- 
where, and people and landscape alike have a plain, heartj", 
flourishing look. 

The greater part of Armagh has the aspect of a good stout old 
English town, although round about the steep ou which the cathedral 
stands (the Roman Catholics have taken possession of another hill, 
and are building an opposition cathedral on this eminence) there are 
some decidedly Irish streets, and that dismal combination of house 
and pigsty which is so common in Munster and Connaught. 

But the main streets, though not fine, are bustling, substantial, 
and prosperous ; and a fine green has some old trees and some good 
houses, and even handsome stately public buildings, round about it, 
that remind one of a comfortable cathedral city across the water. 

The cathedral service is more completely performed here than 
in any English town, I think. The church is small, but extremely 
neat, fresh, and handsome — almost too handsome; covered with 
spick-and-span gilding and carved-work in the style of the thirteenth 
century ; every pew as smart and well-cushioned as my Lord’s own 
seat in the country church ; and for the clergy and their chief, stalls 
and thrones quite curious for their ornament and splendour. The 
Primate with his blue riband and badge (to whom the two clergy- 
men bow reverently as, passing between them, he enters at the 
gate of the altar rail) looks like a noble Prince of the Church : and 
I had heard enough of his magnificent charity and kindness to look 
with reverence at his lofty handsome features. 

Will it be believed that the sermon lasted only for twenty 
minutes'? Can this be Ireland? I think this wonderful circuin- 


526 


THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK 


stance impressed me more than any other with the difference between 
North and South, and, having the Primate’s own countenance for 
the opinion, may confess a great admiration for orthodoxy in tliis 
particular. 

A beautiful monument to Archbishop Stuart, by Chantrey ; 
a magnificent stained window, containing the arms of the clergy of 
the diocese (in the very midst of which I was glad to recognise the 
sober old family coat of the kind and venerable rector of Louth), 
and numberless carvings and decorations, will please the lover of 
church architecture here. I must confess, however, that in my 
idea the cathedral is quite too complete. It is of the twelfth 
century, but not the least venerable. It is as neat and trim as a 
lady’s drawing-room. It wants a hundred years at least to cool 
the raw colours of the stones, and to dull the brightness of the 
gilding : all which benefits, no doubt, time will bring to pass, and 
future cockneys setting off from London Bridge after breakfast in 
an aerial machine may come to hear the morning service here, and 
not remark the faults which have struck a too susceptible tourist of 
the nineteenth century. 

Strolling round the town after service, I saw more decided 
signs that Protestantism was there in the ascendant. I saw no 
less than three different ladies on the prowl, dropping religious 
tracts at various doors; and felt not a little ashamed to be seen 
by one of them getting into a car with bag and baggage, being 
bound for Belfast. 

The ride of ten miles from Armagh to Portadown was not 
the prettiest, but one of the pleasantest drives I have had in 
Ireland, for the country is well cultivated along the whole of the 
road, the trees in plenty, and villages and neat houses always in 
sight. The little farms, with their orchards and comfortable build- 
ings, were as clean and trim as could be wished : they are mostly 
of one storey, with long thatched roofs and shining windows, such 
as those that may be seen in Normandy and Picardy. As it was 
Sunday evening, all the people seemed to be abroad, some saunter- 
ing quietly down the roads, a pair of girls here and there pacing 
leisurely in a field, a little group seated under the trees of an 
orchard, which pretty adjunct to the farm is very common in this 
district ; and the crop of apples seemed this year to be extremely 
plenty. The physiognomy of the people too has quite changed : 
the girls have their hair neatly braided up, not loose over their 
faces as in the South ; and not only are bare feet very rare, and 
stockings extremely neat and white, but I am sure I saw at least 
a dozen good silk gowns upon the women along the road, and 


ARMAGH TO PORTADOWN 


527 


scarcely one which was not clean and in good order. The men for 
the most part figured in jackets, caps, and trousers, eschewing the 
old well of a hat which covers the popular head at the other end 
of the island, the breeches and the long ill-made tail-coat. The 
people’s faces are sharp and neat, not broad, lazy, knowing-looking, 
like that of many a shambling Diogenes who may be seen lounging 
before his cabin in Cork or Kerry. As for the cabins, they have 
disappeared ; and the houses of the people may rank decidedly as 
cottages. The accent, too, is quite different; but this is hard to 
describe in print. The people speak with a Scotch twang, and, as 
I fancied, much more simply and to the point. A man gives you 
a downright answer, without any grin or joke, or attempt at flattery. 
To be sure these are rather early days to begin to judge of national 
characteristics ; and very likely the above distinctions have been 
drawn after profoundly studying a Northern and a Southern waiter 
at the inn at Armagh. 

At any rate, it is clear that the towns are vastly improved, the 
cottages and villages no less so ; the people look active and well- 
dressed ; a sort of weight seems all at once to be taken from the 
Englishman’s mind on entering the province, when he finds himself 
once more looking upon comfort and activity, and resolution. What 
is the cause of this improvement 1 Protestantism is, more than one 
Church-of-Eiigland man said to me ; but for Protestantism, would it 
not be as well to read Scotchism 1 — meaning thrift, prudence, perse- 
verance, boldness, and common sense : with which qualities any body 
of men, of any Christian denomination, would no doubt prosper. 

The little brisk town of Portadown, with its comfortable unpre- 
tending houses, its squares and market-place, its pretty quay, with 
craft along the river, — a steamer building on the dock, close to mills 
and warehouses that look in a full state of prosperity, — was a 
pleasant conclusion to tliis ten miles’ drive, that ended at the newly 
opened railway-station. The distance hence to Belfast is twenty-five 
miles ; Lough Neagh may be seen at one point of the line, and the 
Guide-book says that the station towns of Lurgan and Lisburn are 
extremely picturesque ; but it was night when I passed by them, 
and after a journey of an hour and a quarter reached Belfast. 

That city has been discovered by another eminent cockney 
traveller (for though born in America, the dear old Bow-bell blood 
must run in the veins of Mr. N. P. AVillis), and I have met, in the 
periodical works of the country, with repeated angry allusions to 
his description of Belfast, the pink heels of the chambermaid who 
conducted him to bed (what business had he to be looking at the 
young woman’s legs at alH), and his wrath at the beggary of the 
town and the laziness of the inhabitants, as marked by a line of dirt 


528 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK 

running along the walls, and showing where they were in the habit 
of lolling. 

These observations struck me as rather hard when applied to 
Belfast, though possibly pink lieels and beggary might be remarked 
in other cities of the kingdom ; but the town of Belhist seemed to 
me really to be as neat, prosperous, and handsome a city as need be 
seeij ; and, with respect to tlie inn, that in which I stayed, “Kearn’s,” 
was as comfortable and well-ordered an establishment as the most 
fastidious cockney can desire, and with an advantage which some 
people perhaps do not care for, that the dinners which cost seven 
shillings at London taverns are here served for half-a-crown ; but I 
must repeat liere, in justice to the public, what I stated to Mr. 
William the waiter, viz., that half-a-pint of port-wine does contain 
more than two glasses — at least it does in happy K^ppy England. . . . 
Only, to be sure, here the wine is good, whereas the port-wine in 
England is not port, but for the most part an abominable drink of 
whicli it would be a mercy only to give us two glasses : which, how- 
ever, is clearly wandering from the subject in hand. 

They call Belfast the Irish Liverpool. If people are for calling 
names, it would be better to call it the Irish London at once — the 
chief city of the kingdom at any rate. It looks hearty, thriving, and 
prosperous, as if it had money in its pockets and roast-beef for 
dinner : it has no pretensions to fashion, but looks mayhap better 
in its honest broadcloth than some peo 2 '>le in their shabby brocade. 
The houses are as handsome as at Dublin, with this advantage, that 
the people seem to live in them. They have no attempt at orna- 
ment for the most part, but are grave, stout, red-brick edifices, laid 
out at four angles in orderly streets and squares. 

The stranger cannot fail to be struck (and haply a little 
frightened) by the great number of meeting-houses that dec^orate the 
town, and give evidence of great sermonising on Sundays. These 
buildings do not alfect the Gothic, like many of the meagre edifices 
of the Established and the Roman Catliolic churches, but have a 
physiognomy of their own — a thick-set citizen look. Porticoes have 
they, to be sure, and ornaments Doric, Ionic, and what not ; but 
the meeting-house peeps through all these classical friezes and 
entablatures ; and though one reads of “ Imitations of the Ionic 
Temple of Ilissus, near Atliens,” the classic temple is made to 
assume a bluff, downright, Presbyterian air, which w^ould astonish 
the original builder, doubtless. The churches of the Establishment 
are handsome and stately. The Catholics are building a brick 
cathedral, no doubt of the Tudor style ; — the present chapel, 
flanked by the national schools, is an exceedingly unprepossessing 
building of the Strawberry Hill or Castle of Otranto Gothic : the 


BELFAST POLITICS 


529 

keys and mitre figuring in the centre — “ The cross-keys and night- 
cap,” as a hard-hearted Presbyterian called them to me, with his 
blunt humour. 

The three churches are here pretty equally balanced : Presby- 
terians 25,000, Catholics 20,000, Episcopalians 17,000. Each 
party has two or more newspaper organs ; and the wars between 
them are dire and unceasing, as the reader may imagine. For 
whereas in other parts of Ireland where Catholics and Episcopalians 
prevail, and the Presbyterian body is too small, each party has but 
one opponent to belabour : here the Ulster politician, whatever may 
be his way of thinking, has the great advantage of possessing two 
enemies on whom he may exercise his eloquence ; and in this 
triangular duel all do tlieir duty nobly. Then there are subdivisions 
of hostility. For the Church there is a High Church and a Low 
Church journal ; for the Liberals there is a “ Eepeal ” journal and 
a “No-repeal” journal; for the Presbyterians there are yet more 
varieties of journalistic opinion, on which it does not become a 
stranger to pass a judgment. If the Northern Whig says tliat 
the Banner of Ulster “ is a polluted rag, which has hoisted the red 
banner of falsehood” (which elegant words may be found in the 
first-named journal of the 1 3th October), let us be sure the Banner 
has a compliment for the Northern Whig in return ; if the 
“Eepeal” Vindicator and the priests attack the Presbyterian 
journals and the “ home missions,” the reverend gentlemen of Geneva 
are quite as ready with the pen as their bretliren of Eome, and not 
much more scrupulous in their language than the laity. When I 
was in Belfast, violent disputes were raging between Presbyterian 
and Episcopalian Conservatives with regard to the Marriage Bill ; 
between Presbyterians and Catholics on the subject of the “home 
missions ” ; between the Liberals and Conservatives, of course. 
“ Thank God,” for instance, writes a “ Eepeal ” journal, “ that the 
honour and power of Ireland are not involved in the disgraceful 
Afghan war ! ” — a sentiment insinuating Eepeal and something 
more ; disowning, not merely this or that Ministry, but the Sove- 
reign and her jurisdiction altogether. But details of these quarrels, 
religious or political, can tend to edify but' few readers out of the 
country. Even in it, as there are some nine shades of politico- 
religious differences, an observer pretending to impartiality must 
necessarily displease eight parties, and almost certainly the whole 
nine; and the reader who desires to judge the politics of Belfast 
must study for himself. Nine journals, publishing four hundred 
numbers in a year, each number containing about as much as an 
octavo volume : these, and the back numbers of former years, 
sedulously read,' will give the student a notion of the subject in 


530 


THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK 


question. And then, after having read the statements on either 
side, he must ascertain the truth of them, by which time more 
labour of the same kind will have grown upon him, and he will 
have attained a good old age. 

Amongst the poor, the Catholics and Presbyterians are said to 
go in a pretty friendly manner to the national schools ; but among 
the Presbyterians themselves it appears there are great differences 
and quarrels, by which a fine institution, the Belfast Academy, 
seems to have suffered considerably. It is almost the only building 
in this large and substantial place that bears, to the stranger’s eye, 
an unprosperous air. A vast building, standing fairly in the midst 
of a handsome green and place, and with snug comfortable red-brick 
streets stretching away at neat right angles all around, the Presby- 
terian College looks handsome enough at a short distance, but on a 
nearer view is found in a woful state of dilapidation. It does not 
possess the supreme dirt and filth of Maynooth — that can but 
belong to one place, even in Ireland ; but the building is in a 
dismal state of unrepair, steps and windows broken, doors and 
stairs battered. Of scholars I saw but a few, and these were in 
the drawing academy. The fine arts do not appear as yet to flourish 
in Belfast. The models from which the lads were copying were not 
good : one was copying a bad copy of a drawing by Prout ; one was 
colouring a print. The ragged children in a German national school 
have better models before them, and are made acquainted with 
truer principles of art and beauty. 

Hard by is the Belfast Museum, where an exhibition of pictures 
was in preparation, under the patronage of the Belfast Art Union. 
Artists in all parts of the kingdom had been invited to send their 
works, of which the Union pays the carriage ; and the porters and 
secretary were busy unpacking cases, in which I recognised some of 
the works which had before figured on the walls of the London 
Exhibition rooms. 

The book-shops which I saw in this thriving town said much for 
the religious disposition of the Belfast public : there were numerous 
portraits of reverend gentlemen, and their works of every variety : — 
“ The Sinner’s Friend,” “ The Watchman on the Tower,” “ The Peep 
of Day,” “ Sermons delivered at Bethesda Chapel,” by So-and-so ; 
with hundreds of the neat little gilt books with bad prints. Scriptural 
titles, and gilt edges, that come from one or two serious publishing 
houses in London, and in considerable numbers from the neighbouring 
Scotch shores. As for the theatre, with such a public the drama 
can be expected to find but little favour ; and the gentleman who 
accompanied me in my walk, and to whom I am indebted for many 
kindnesses during my stay, said not only that he had never been in 


FLAX-SPINNING MILLS 


531 


the playhouse, but that he never heard of any one going thither. I 
found out the place where the poor neglected Dramatic Muse of 
Ulster hid herself; and was of a party of six in the boxes, the 
benches of the pit being dotted over with about a score more. Well, 
it was a comfort to see that the gallery was quite full, and exceed- 
ingly happy and noisy : they stamped, and stormed, and shouted, 
and clapped, in a way that w^as pleasant to hear. One young god, 
between the acts, favoured the public with a song — extremely ill 
sung certainly, but the intention was everything ; and his brethren 
above stamped in chorus with roars of delight. 

As for the piece performed, it was a good old melodrama of the 
British sort, inculcating a thorough detestation of vice and a warm 
sympathy with suffering virtue. The serious are surely too hard 
upon poor phiygoei-s. We never for a moment allow rascality to 
triumph beyond a certain part of the third act ; we sympathise with 
the woes of young lovers — her in ringlets and a Polish cap, him in 
tights and a Vandyke collar; we abhor avarice or tyranny in the 
person of “ the first old man ” with the white wig and red stockings, 
or of the villain with the roaring voice and black whiskers ; we 
applaud the honest wag (he is a good fellow in spite of his 
cowardice) in his hearty jests at the tyrant before mentioned ; and 
feel a kindly sympathy with all mankind as the curtain falls over 
all the characters in a group, of which successful love is the happy 
centre. Eeverend gentlemen in meeting-house and church, who 
shout against the immoralities of this poor stage, and threaten all 
playgoers with the fate which is awarded to unsuccessful plays, 
should try and bear less hardly upon us. 

An artist — who, in spite of the Art Union, can scarcely, I 
should think, flourish in a place that seems devoted to preaching, 
politics, and trade — has somehow found his way to this humble 
little theatre, and decorated it with some exceedingly pretty scenery 
— almost the only indication of a taste for the fine arts which I have 
found as yet in tlie country. 

A fine night-exhibition in the town is that of the huge spinning- 
mills which surround it, and of which the thousand windows are 
lighted up at nightfall, and may be seen from almost all quarters 
of the city. 

A gentleman to whom I had brought an introduction good- 
naturedly left his work to walk with me to one of these mills, 
and stated by wdiom he had been introduced to me to the mill- 
proprietor, Mr. Mulholland. “ That recommendation,” said Mr. 
Mulholland gallantly, “is welcome anywhere.” It was from my 
kind friend Mr. Lever. What a privilege some men have, who can 
sit quietly in their studies and make friends all the world over ! 


532 


THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK 


Below ia the figure of a girl sketched in the place : there are 
nearly five hundred girls employed in it. They work in huge long 
chambers, lighted by numbers of windows, hot with steam, buzzing 
and humming with hundreds of thousands of whirling wheels, that 
all take their motion from a steam-engine w'hich lives apart in a 
hot cast-iron temple of its own, from which it communicates with 
the innumerable machines that the five hundred girls preside over. 
They have seemingly but to take away the work when done — the 
enormous monster in the cast-iron room does it all. He cards the 



flax, and combs it, and spins it, and beats it, and twists it : the five 
hundred girls stand by to feed him, or take the material from him, 
when he has had his will of it. There is something frightful in the 
vjistness as in the minuteness of this power. Every thread writhes 
and twirls as the steam-fate orders it, — every thread, of which it 
would take a hundred to make the tliickness of a hair. 

I have seldom, I think, seen more good looks than amongst the 
young women employed in this place. They work for twelve hours 
daily, in rooms of which the heat is intolerable to a stranger ; but 
in spite of it they looked gay, stout, and healthy; nor were their 


ENVIRONS OF BELFAST 533 

forms much concealed by the very simple clothes they wear while 
in the mill. 

The stranger will be struck by the good looks not only of these 
spinsters, but of almost all the young women in the streets. I 
never saw a town where so many women are to be met — so many 
and so pretty — with and without bonnets, with good figures, in 
neat homely shawls and dresses. The grisettes of Belfast are 
among the handsomest ornaments of it ; and as good, no doubt, 
and irreproachable in morals as their sisters in the rest of Ireland. 

Many of the merchants’ counting-houses are crowded in little 
old-fashioned “ entries,” or courts, such as one sees about the Bank 
in London. In and about these, and in the principal streets in the 
daytime, is a great activity, and homely unpretending bustle. The 
men have a business look, too ; and one sees very few flaunting 
dandies, as in Dublin. The shopkeepers do not brag upon their 
signboards, or keep “emporiums,” as elsewhere, — their places of 
business being for the most part homely ; though one may see some 
splendid shops, which are not to be surpassed by London. The 
docks and quays are busy with their craft and shipping, upon the 
beautiful borders of the Lough ; — the large red warehouses stretch- 
ing along the shores, with ships loading, or unloading, or building, 
hammers clanging, pitch-pots flaming and boiling, seamen cheering 
in the ships, or lolling lazily on the shore. The life and movement 
of a port here give the stranger plenty to admire and observe. 
And nature has likewise done everything for the place — surrounding 
it with picturesque hills and water; — for which latter I must 
confess I was not very sorry to leave the town behind me, and its 
mills, and its meeting-houses, and its commerce, and its theologians, 
and its politicians. 


CHAPTER XXVIII 


BELFAST TO THE CAUSEWAY 


HE Lough of Belfast has a reputation for beauty almost as 



great as that of the Bay of Dublin ; but though, on the day 


^ I left Belfast for Larne, the morning was fine, and the sky 
clear and blue above, an envious mist lay on the water, w'hich hid 
all its beauties from the dozen of passengers on the Larne coach. 
All we could see were ghostly-looking silhouettes of ships gliding 
here and there through the clouds ; and I am sure the coachman’s 
remark was quite correct, that it was a pity the day was so misty. 
I found myself, before I was aware, entrapped into a theological 
controversy with two grave gentlemen outside the coach — another 
fog, which did not subside much before we reached Carrickfergus. 
The road from the Ulster capital to that little town seemed mean- 
while to be extremely lively : cars and omnibuses passed thickly 
peopled. For some miles along the road is a string of handsome 
country-houses, belonging to the rich citizens of the town ; and we 
passed by neat-looking churches and chapels, factories and rows of 
cottages clustered round them, like villages of old at the foot of 
feudal castles. Furthermore it was hard to see, for the mist which 
lay on the water had enveloped the mountains too, and we only had 
a glimpse or two of smiling comfortable fields and gardens. 

Carrickfergus rejoices in a real romantic-looking castle jutting 
bravely into the sea, and famous as a background for a picture. 
It is of use for little else now, luckily ; nor has it been put to any 
real warlike purposes since the day when honest Thurot stormed, 
took, and evacuated it. Let any romancer who is in want of a 
hero peruse the second volume, or it may be the third, of the 
“ Annual Register,” where the adventures of that gallant fellow are 
related. He was a gentleman, a genius, and, to crown all, a smuggler. 
He lived for some time in Ireland, and in England, in disguise ; he 
had love-passages and romantic adventures ; he landed a body of his 
countrymen on these shores, and died in the third volume, after a 
battle gallantly fought on both sides, but in which victory rested 
with the British arms. What can a novelist want more ? William 
III. also landed here ; and as for the rest, “ M‘Skimin, the accurate 


COACH-BOX SKETCHES 


535 


and laborious historian of the town, informs us that the founding of 
the castle is lost in the depths of antiquity.” It is pleasant to give 
a little historic glance at a place as one passes through. The above 
facts may be relied on as coming from Messrs. Curry’s excellent 
new Guide-book; with the exception of the history of Monsieur 
Thurot, which is “ private information,” drawn years ago from the 
scarce work previously mentioned. By the way, another excellent 
companion to the traveller in Ireland is the collection of the “ Irish 
Penny Magazine,” which may be purchased for a guinea, and 
contains a mass of information regarding the customs and places of 
the country. Willis’s "work is amusing, as everything is, written 
by that lively author, and the engravings accompanying it as 
unfaithful as any ever made. 

Meanwhile, asking pardon for this double digression, which has 
been made while the guard-coachman is delivering his mail-bags — 
while the landlady stands looking on in the sun, her hands folded 
a little below the waist — while a company of tall burly troops from 
the castle has passed by, “ commanded ” by a very mean, mealy- 
faced, uneasy-looking little subaltern — while the poor epileptic idiot 
of the town, wallowing and grinning in the road, and snorting out 
supplications for a halfpenny, has tottered away in possession of 
the coin ; — meanwhile, fresh horses are brought out, and the small 
boy who acts behind the coach makes an unequal and disagreeable 
tootooing on a horn kept to warn sleepy carmen and celebrate 
triumphal entries into and exits from cities. As the mist clears up, 
tlie country shows round about wild but friendly : at one place we 
passed a village wliere a crowd of well-dressed people were collected 
at an auction of farm-furniture, and many more figures might be 
seen coming over the fields and issuing from the mist. The owner 
of the carts and machines is going to emigrate to America. Presently 
we come to the demesne of Red Hall, “ through which is a pretty 
drive of upwards of a mile in length : it contains a rocky glen, the 
bed of a mountain stream — which is perfectly dry, except in winter 
— ajid the woods about it are picturesque, and it is occasionally the 
resort of summer-parties of pleasure.” Nothing can be more just 
than the first part of the description, and there is very little doubt 
that the latter paragraph is equally faithful ; — with which we come 
to Larne, a “ most thriving town,” the same authority says, but a 
most dirty and narrow-streeted and ill-built one. Some of the 
houses reminded one of the South. 

A benevolent fellow-passenger said that the window was “a 
convanience.” And here, after a drive of nineteen miles upon a 
comfortable coach, we were transferred vdth the mail-bags to a 
comfortable car that makes the journey to Ballycastle. There is 


536 


THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK 


no harm in saying that there was a very pretty smiling buxom 
young lass for a travelling companion ; and somehow, to a lonely 
person, the landscape always looks prettier in such society. The 
“Antrim coast-road,” which we now, after a few miles, begin to 
follow, besides being one of the most noble and gallant works of 
art that is to be seen in any country, is likewise a route highly 
picturesque and romantic ; the sea spreading wide before the 
spectator’s eyes upon one side of the route, the tall cliffs of limestone 
rising abruptly above him on the other. There are in the map of 
Curry’s Guide-book points indicating castles and abbey ruins in the 
vicinity of Glenarm ; and the little place looked so comfortable, as 
we abruptly came upon it, round a rock, that I was glad to have 
an excuse for staying, and felt an extreme curiosity with regard 
to the abbey and the castle. 

The abbey only exists in the unromantic shape of a wall ; the 
castle, however, far from being a ruin, is an antique in the most 
complete order — an old castle repaired so as to look like new, and 
increased by modern wings, towers, gables, and terraces, so extremely 
old that the whole forms a grand and imposing-looking baronial 
edifice, towering above the little town which it seems to protect, and 
with which it is connected by a bridge and a severe-looking armed 
tower and gate. In the town is a town-house, with a campanile in 
the Italian taste, and a school or chapel opposite in the Early English ; 
so that the inhabitants can enjoy a considerable architectural variety. 
A grave-looking church, with a beautiful steeple, stands amid some 
trees hard by a second handsome bridge and the little quay ; and 
here, too, was perched a poor little wandering theatre (gallery Id., 
pit 2d.), and proposing that night to play “ Bombastes Furioso, and 
the Comic Bally of Glenarm in an Uproar.” I heard the thumping 
of the drum in the evening ; but, as at Roundwood, nobody patro- 
nised the poor players. At nine o’clock there was not a single taper 
lighted under their awning, and my heart (perhaps it is too suscep- 
tible) bled for Fusbos. 

The severe gate of the castle was opened by a kind good-natured 
old porteress, instead of a rough gallowglass with a battle-axe and 
yellow shirt (more fitting guardian of so stern a postern), and the 
old dame insisted upon my making an application to see the grounds 
of the castle, which request was very kindly granted, and afforded a 
delightful half-hour’s walk. The grounds are beautiful, and excel- 
lently kept ; the trees in their autumn livery of red, yellow, and 
brown, except some stout ones that keep to their green summer 
clothes, and the laurels and their like, who wear pretty much the 
same dress all the year round. The birds were singing with the 
most astonishing vehemence in the dark glistening shrubberies ; but 


GLENARM TO CUSHENDALL 


537 


the only sound in the walks was that of the rakes pulling together 
the falling leaves. There was of these walks one especially, flanked 
tow^ards the river by a turreted wall covered with ivy, and having 
on the one side a row of lime-trees that had turned quite yellow, 
while opposite them was a green slope, and a quaint terrace-stair, 
and a long range of fantastic gables, towers, and chimneys ; — there 
was, I say, one of these walks which Mr. Cattermole would hit off 
with a few strokes of his gallant pencil, and which I could fancy to 
be frequented by some of those long-trained, tender, gentle-looking 
young beauties whom Mr. Stone loves to design. Here they come, 
talking of love in a tone that is between a sigh and a whisper, and 
gliding in rustling shot silks over the fallen leaves. 

There seemed to be a good deal of stir in the little port, where, 
says the Guide-book, a couple of hundred vessels take in cargoes 
annually of the produce of the district. Stone and lime are the 
chief articles exported, of which the cliffs for miles give an unfailing 
supply : and, as one travels the mountains at night, the kilns may 
be seen lighted up in the lonely places, and flaring red in the 
darkness. 

If the road from Larne to Glenarm is beautiful, the coast route 
from the latter place to Cushendall is still more so ; and, except 
peerless Westport, I have seen nothing in Ireland so picturesque as 
this noble line of coast scenery. The new road, luckily, is not yet 
completed, and the lover of natural beauties had better hasten to 
the spot in time, ere, by flattening and improving the road, and 
leading it along the sea-shore, half the magnificent prospects are 
shut out, now visible from along the mountainous old road ; which, 
according to the good old fashion, gallantly takes all the hills in its 
course, disdaining to turn them. At three miles’ distance, near the 
village of Cairlough, Glenarm looks more beautiful than when you 
are close upon it; and, as the car travels on to the stupendous 
Garron Head, the traveller, looking back, has a view of the whole 
line of coast southward as far as Isle Magee, with its bays and white 
villages, and tall precipitous cliffs, green, white, and grey. Eyes 
left, you may look with wonder at the mountains rising above, or 
presently at the pretty park and grounds of Drumnasole. Here, 
near the woods of Nappan, which are dressed in ten thousand 
colours — ash-leaves turned yellow, nut-trees red, birch-leaves brown, 
lime-leaves spec.kled over with black spots (marks of a disease which 
they will never get over) — stands a school-house that looks like a 
French chMeau, having probably been a villa in former days, and 
discharges as w'e pass a cluster of fair-haired children that begin 
running madly down the hill, their fair hair streaming behind them. 
Down the hill goes the car, madly too, and you wonder and bless 


538 


THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK 


your stars that the horse does not fall, or crush the children that 
are running before, or you that are sitting behind. Every now and 
then, at a trip of the horse, a disguised lady’s-maid, with a canary- 
bird in her lap and a vast anxiety about her best bonnet in the 
bandbox, begins to scream : at which the car-boy grins, and rattles 
down the hill only the quicker. The road, which almost always 
skirts the hillside, has been torn sheer through the rock here and 
there : an immense work of levelling, shovelling, picking, blasting, 
filling, is going on along the -whole line. As I was looking up a 
vast cliff, decorated with patches of green here and there at its 
summit, and at its base, where the sea had beaten until now, with 
long thin waving grass, that I told a grocer, my neighbour, was like 
mermaid’s hair (though he did not in the least coincide in the 
simile) — as I was looking up the hill, admiring two goats that were 
browsing on a little patch of green, and two sheep perched yet 
higher (I had never seen sucli agility in mutton) — as, I say once 
more, I was looking at these phenomena, the grocer nudges me and 
says, “ Look on to this side — that's Scotland yon." If ever this 
book reaches a second edition, a sonnet shall be inserted in this 
place, describing the author’s feelings on his fiest view of 
Scotland. Meanwhile, the Scotch mountains remain undisturbed, 
looking blue and solemn far away in the placid sea. 

Rounding Garron Head, we come upon the inlet which is called 
Red Bay, the shores and sides of which are of red clay, that has 
taken the place of limestone, and towards which, between two noble 
ranges of mountains, stretches a long green plain, forming, together 
with the hills that protect it and the sea that washes it, one of the 
most beautiful landscapes of this most beautiful country. A fair 
writer, whom the Guide-book quotes, breaks out into strains of 
admiration in speaking of tliis district ; calls it “ Switzerland in 
miniature,” celebrates its mountains of Glenariff and Lurgethan, and 
lauds, in terms of equal admiration, the rivers, waterfalls, and other 
natural beauties that lie within the glen. 

The writer’s enthusiasm regarding this tract of country is quite 
warranted, nor can any praise in admiration of it be too high ; but 
alas ! in calling a place “Switzerland in miniature,” do we describe 
it? In joining together cataracts, valleys, rushing streams, and 
blue mountains, with all the emphasis and picturesqueness of which 
type is capable, we cannot get near to a copy of Nature’s sublime 
countenance ; and the writer can’t hope to describe such grand 
sights so as to make them visible to the fireside reader, but can 
only, to the best of his taste and experience, warn the future 
traveller where he may look out for objects to admire. I think 
this sentiment has been repeated a score of times in this journal ; 


CUSHENDALL TO BALLYCASTLE 


539 

but it comes upon one at every new display of beauty and magnifi- 
cence, such as here the Almighty in His bounty has set before us ; 
and every such scene seems to warn one, that it is not made to talk 
about too much, but to think of and love, and be grateful for. 

Rounding this beautiful bay and valley, we passed by some 
caves that penetrate deep into the red rock, and are inhabited — 
one by a blacksmith, whose forge was blaming in the dark ; one by 
cattle; and one by an old woman that has sold whisky here for 
time out of mind. The road then passes under an arch cut in the 
rock by the same spirited individual who has cleared away many 
of the difficulties in the route to Glenarm, and beside a conical hill, 
where for some time previous have been visible the ruins of the 
“ancient auld castle” of Red Bay. At a distance, it looks very 
grand upon its height ; but on coming close it has dwindled down 
to a mere wall, and not a high one. Hence quickly we reached 
Cushendall, where the grocer’s family are on the look-out for him : 
the driver begins to blow his little bugle, and the disguised lady’s- 
maid begins to smooth her bonnet and hair. 

At this place a good dinner of fresh whiting, broiled bacon, and 
small beer was served up to me for the sum of eightpence, while the 
lady’s-maid in question took her tea. “ This town is full of 
Papists,” said her ladyship, with an extremely genteel air; and, 
either in consequence of this, or because she ate up one of the fish, 
which she had clearly no right to, a disagreement arose between us, 
and we did not exchange another word for the rest of the journey. 
The road led us for fourteen miles by wild mountains, and across a 
fine aqueduct to Ballycastle ; but it was dark as we left Cushendall, 
and it was difficult to see more in the grey evening but that the 
country was savage and lonely, except where the kilns were lighted 
up here and there in the hills, and a shining river might be seen 
winding in the dark ravines. Not far from Ballycastle lies a little 
old ruin, called the Abbey of Bonamargy : by it the Margy river 
runs into the sea, upon which you come suddenly ; and on the 
shore are some tall buildings and factories, that looked as well in 
the moonlight as if they had not been in ruins : and hence a fine 
avenue of limes leads to Ballycastle. They must have been planted 
at the time recorde'd in the Guide-Book, when a mine was dis- 
covered near the town, and the works and warehouses on the quay 
erected. At present, the place has little trade, and half-a-dozen 
carts with apples, potatoes, dried fish, and turf, seem to contain the 
commerce of the market. 

The picturesque sort of vehicle designed on the next page is said 
to be going much out of fashion in the country, the solid wheels 
giving place to those common to the rest of Europe. A fine and 


540 


THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK 


edifying conversation took place between the designer and the owner 
of the vehicle. “ Stand still for a minute, you and the car, and I 
will give you twopence!” “What do you want to do with if?” 
says the latter. “ To draw it.” “ To draw it 1 ” says he, with a 
wild look of surprise. “ And is it yoiCll draw it ? ” “I mean I 
want to take a picture of it : you know what a picture is ! ” “ No, 

I don’t.” “ Here’s one,” says I, showing him a book. “ Oh, faith, 
sir,” says the carman, drawing back rather alarmed, “ I’m no 
scholar ! ” And he concluded by saying, “ Will you buy the turt\ 
or will you not 1 ” By which straightforward question he showed 
himself to be a real practical man of sense ; and, as he got an un- 
satisfactory reply to this query, he forthwith gave a lash to his pony 
and declined to wait a minute longer. As for the twopence, he 



certainly accepted that handsome sum, and put it into his pocket, 
but with an air of extreme wonder at the transaction, and of con- 
tempt for the giver ; which very likely was perfectly justifiable. I 
have seen men despised in genteel companies with not half so good 
a cause. 

In respect to the fine arts, I am bound to say that the people in 
the South and West showed much more curiosity and interest with 
regard to a sketch and its progress than has been shown by the 
badauds of the North ; the former looking on by dozens and ex- 
claiming, “That’s Frank Mahony’s house?” or “Look at Biddy 
Mullins and the child ! ” or “ He’s taking off the chimney now ! ” as 
the case may be ; whereas, sketching in the North, I have collected 
no such spectators, the people not taking the slightest notice of the 
transaction. 


THE ROAD TO THE CAUSEWAY 


541 


The little town of Ballycastle does not contain much to occupy 
the traveller : behind the church stands a ruined old mansion with 
round turrets, that must have been a stately tower in former days. 
The town is more modern, but almost as dismal as the tower. 
A little street behind it slides off into a potato-field — the peaceful 
barrier of the place ; and hence I could see the tall rock of Ben- 
gore, with the sea beyond it, and a pleasing landscape stretching 
towards it. 

Dr. Hamilton’s elegant and learned book has an awful picture 
of yonder head of Bengore ; and hard by it the Guide-book says is 
a coal-mine, where Mr. Barrow found a globular stone hammer, 
which, he infers, was used in the coal-mine before weapons of iron 
were invented. The former writer insinuates that the mine must 
have been worked more than a thousand years ago, “before the 
turbulent chaos of events that succeeded the eighth century.” Shall 
I go and see a coal-mine that may have been worked a thousand 
years since? Why go see it? says idleness. To be able to say 
that I have seen it. Sheridan’s advice to his son here came into 
my mind ; * and I shall reserve a description of the mine, and an 
antiquarian dissertation regarding it, for publication elsewhere. 

Ballycastle must not be left without recording the fact that one 
of the snuggest inns in the country is kept by the postmaster 
there ; who has also a stable full of good horses for travellers who 
take his little inn on the way to the Giant’s Causeway. 

The road to the Causeway is bleak, wild, and hilly. The cabins 
along the road are scarcely better than those of Kerry, the inmates 
as ragged, and more fierce and dark-looking. I never was so 
pestered by juvenile beggars as in the dismal village of Ballintoy. 
A crowd of them rushed after the car, calling for money in a fierce 
manner, as if it was their right ; dogs as fierce as the children came 
yelling after the vehicle ; and the faces which scowled out of the 
black cabins were not a whit more good-humoured. We passed by 
one or two more clumps of cabins, with their turf and corn-stacks 
lying together at the foot of the hills; placed there for the con- 
venience of the children, doubtless, who can thus accompany the 
car either way, and shriek out their “ Bonny gantleman, gi’e us a 
ha’p’ny.” A couple of churches, one with a pair of its pinnacles 
blown. off, stood in the dismal open country, and a gentleman’s 
house here and there : there were no trees about them, but a brown 
grass round about — liills rising and falling in front, and the sea 
beyond. The occasional view of the coast was noble ; wild Bengore 
towering eastwards as we went along ; Raghery Island before us, in 

* “ I want to go into a coal-mine,” says Tom Sheridan, “in order to say I 
have been there.” “Well, then, say so,” replied the admirable father. 


542 


THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK 


the steep rocks and caves of which Bruce took shelter when driven 
from yonder Scottish eoast, that one sees stretching blue in the 
north-east. 

I think this wild gloomy tract through which one passes is a 
good prelude for what is to be the great sight of the day, and got 
my mind to a proper state of awe by the time we were near the 
journey’s end. Turning away shore wards by the fine house of Sir 
Francis Macnaghten, I went towards a lone handsome inn, that 
stands close to the Causeway. The landlord at Bally castle had 
lent me Hamilton’s book to read on the road ; but I had not time 
then to read more than half-a-dozen pages of it. They described 
how the author, a clergyman distinguished as a man of science, had 
been thrust out of a friend’s house by the frightened servants one 
wild night, and butchered by some Whiteboys who were waiting 
outside and called for his blood. I had been told at Belfast that 
there was a corpse in the inn : was it there now ? It had driven 
off, the car-boy said, “in a handsome hearse and four to Dublin the 
whole way.” It was gone, but I thought the house looked as if 
the ghost was there. See, yonder are the black rocks stretching 
to Portrush : how leaden and grey the sea looks ! how grey and 
leaden the sky ! You hear the waters roaring evermore, as they 
have done since the beginning of the world. The car drives up 
with a dismal grinding noise of the wheels to the big lone house : 
there’s no smoke in the chimneys; the doors are locked. Three 
savage-looking men rush after the car : are they the men who took 
out Mr. Hamilton — took him out and butchered him in the moon- 
light? Is everybody, I wonder, dead in that big house? Will 
they let us in before those men are up? Out comes a pretty 
smiling girl, with a curtsey, just as the savages are at the car, and 
you are ushered into a very comfortable room ; and the men turn 
out to be guides. Well, thank Heaven it’s no worse! I had fifteen 
pounds still left ; and, when desperate, have no doubt should fight 
like a lion. 


CHAPTER XXIX 

THE GIANTS CAUSE (FAY— COLERAINE— PORTRUSH 

T he traveller no sooner issues from the inn by a back door, 
which he is informed will lead him straight to the Causeway, 
than the guides pounce upon him, with a dozen rough boat- 
men who are likewise lying in wait ; and a crew of shrill beggar- 
boys, with boxes of spars, ready to tear him and each other to 
pieces seemingly, yell and bawl incessantly round him. “ I’m the 
guide Miss Henry recommends,” shouts one. “ I’m Mr. Macdonald’s 
guide,” pushes in another. “ Tliis way,” roars a third, and drags 
his prey down a precipice ; the rest of them clambering and quarrel- 
ling after. I liad no friends : I was perfectly helpless. I wanted 
to walk down to the shore by myself, but they would not let me, 
and I had nothing for it but to yield myself into the hands of the 
guide who had seized me, who hurried me down the steep to a little 
wild bay, flanked on each side by rugged cliffs and rocks, against 
whicli the waters came tumbling, frothing, and roaring furiously. 
Upon some of these black rocks two or three boats were lying : 
four men seized a boat, pushed it shouting into the water, and 
ravished me into it. We had slid between two rocks, where the 
channel came gurgling in : we were up one swelling wave that came 
in a huge advancing body ten feet above us, and were plunging 
madly down another (the descent causes a sensation in the lower 
regions of the stomach which it is not at all necessary here to 
describe), before I had leisure to ask myself wliy the deuce I was 
in that boat, with four rowers hurrooing and bounding madly 
from one huge liquid mountain to another — four rowers whom I 
was bound to pay. I say, the query came qualmishly across me 
why the devil I was there, and why not walking calmly on the 
shore. 

The guide began pouring his professional jargon into my ears. 
“ Every one of them bays,” says he, “ has a name (take my place, 
and the spray won’t come over you) : that is Port Noffer, and the 
next. Port na Gange ; them rocks is the Stookawns (for every rock 
has its name as well as every bay) ; and yonder — give way, my 
boys, — hurray, we’re over it now: has it wet you much, sir? — 


544 


THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK 


that’s the little cave : it goes five hundred feet under ground, and 
the boats goes into it easy of a calm day.” 

“ Is it a fine day or a rough one now 1 ” said I ; the internal 
disturbance going on with more severity than ever. 

“ It’s betwixt and between ; or, I may say, neither one nor the 
other. Sit up, sir. Look at the entrance of the cave. Don’t be 
afraid, sir : never has an accident happened in any one of these 
boats, and the most delicate ladies has rode in them on rougher 
days than this. Now, boys, pull to the big cave. That, sir, is six 
hundred and sixty yards in length, though some say it goes for 
miles inland, where the people sleeping in their houses hear the 
waters roaring under them.” 

The water was tossing and tumbling into the mouth of the little 
cave. I looked, — for the guide would not let me alone till I did, — 
and saw what might be expected : a black hole of some forty feet 
high, into which it was no more possible to see than into a millstone. 
“For Heaven’s sake, sir,” says I, “if you’ve no particular wish to 
see the mouth of the big cave, put about and let us see the Causeway 
and get ashore.” This "was done, the guide meanwliile telling some 
story of a ship of the Spanish Armada having fired her guns at two 
peaks of rock, then visible, which the crew mistook for chimney- 
pots — what benighted fools these Spanish Armadilloes must have 
been ; it is easier to see a rock than a chimney-pot ; it is easy to 
know that chimney-pots do not grow on rocks. — “ But where, if you 
please, is the Causeway 

“ That’s the Causewav before you,” says the guide. 

“ Which 1” 

“ That pier which you see jutting out into the bay right 
ahead.” 

“ Mon dieiL ! and have I travelled a hundred and fifty miles to 
see that ? ” 

I declare, upon my conscience, the barge moored at Hungerford 
Market is a more majestic object, and seems to occupy as much 
space. As for telling a man that the Causeway is merely a part 
of the sight ; that he is there for the purpose of examining the 
surrounding scenery ; that if he looks to the westward he will see 
Portrush and Donegal Head before him ; that the cliffs immediately 
in his front are green in some places, black in others, interspersed 
with blotches of brown and streaks of verdure ; — what is all this to 
a lonely individual lying sick in a boat, between two immense waves 
that only give him momentary glimpses of the land in question, to 
show that it is frightfully near, and yet you are an hour from it 1 
They won’t let you go away — that cursed guide ivill tell out his 
stock of legends and stories. The boatmen insist upon your looking 



A ROW TO THE GIANt’s CAUSEWAY. 








THE BEGGARS AT THE CAUSEWAY 545 


at Doxes of “ specimens,” which you must buy of them ; they laugh 
as you grow paler and paler ; they offer you more and more 
“ specimens ” ; even the dirty lad who pulls number three, and 
is not allowed by his comrades to speak, puts in his oar, and 
hands you over a piece of Irish diamond (it looks like half-sucked 
alicompayne), and scorns you. “ Hurray, lads, now for it, give 
way ! ” how the oars do hurtle in the rowlocks, as the boat goes 
up an aqueous mountain, and then down into one of those cursed 
maritime valleys where there is no rest as on shore ! 

At last, after they had pulled me enough about, and sold me all 
the boxes of specimens, I was permitted to land at the spot whence 
we set out, and whence, though we had been rowing for an hour, we 
had never been above five hundred yards distant. Let all cockneys 
take warning from this ; let the solitary one caught issuing from the 
back door of the hotel, shout at once to the boatmen to be gone — 
that he will have none of them. Let him, at any rate, go first 
down to the water to determine whether it be smooth enough to 
allow him to take any decent pleasure by riding on its surface. 
For after all, it must be remembered that it is pleasure we come 
for — that we are not obliged to take those boats. — Well, well ! I 
paid ten shillings for mine, and ten minutes before would cheerfully 
have paid five pounds to be allowed to quit it; it was no hard 
bargain after all. As for the boxes of spar and specimens, I at once, 
being on terra firma, broke my promise, and said I would see them 

all first. It is wrong to swear, I know; but sometimes it 

relieves one so much ! 

The first act on shore was to make a sacrifice to Sanctissima 
Tellus ; offering up to her a neat and becoming Taglioni coat, 
bought for a guinea in Covent Garden only three months back. 
I sprawled on my back on the smoothest of rocks that is, and tore 
the elbows to xheces : the guide picked me up ; the boatmen did 
not stir, for they had had their will of me ; the guide alone picked 
me up, I say, and bade me follow him. We went across a boggy 
ground in one of the little bays, round which rise the green walls of 
the cliff, terminated on either side by a black crag, and the line of 
the shore washed by the poluphloisboiotic, nay, the poluphloisboio- 
tatotic sea. Two beggars stepped over the bog after us howling for 
money, and each holding up a cursed box of specimens. No oaths, 
threats, entreaties, would drive these vermin away; for some time 
the whole scene had been spoilt by the 'incessant and abominable 
jargon of them, the boatmen, and the guides. I was obliged to 
give them money to be left in quiet, and if, as no doubt will be 
the case, the Giant’s Causeway shall be a still greater resort of 
travellers than ever, the county must put policemen on the rocks 
5 2 m 


546 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK 

to keep the beggars away, or fling them in the water when they 
appear. 

And now, by force of money, liaving got rid of the sea and land 
beggars, you are at liberty to examine at your leisure the wonders 
of the place. There is not the least need for a guide to attend the 
stranger, unless the latter have a mind to listen to a parcel of 
legends, which may be well from the mouth of a wild simple 
peasant who believes in his tales, but are odious from a dullard 
who narrates them at the rate of sixpence a lie. Fee him and the 
other beggars, and at last you are left tranquil to look at the 
strange scene with your own eyes, and enjoy your own thoughts 
at leisure. 

That is, if the thoughts awakened by such a scene may be 
called enjoyment ; but for me, I confess, they are too near akin 
to fear to be pleasant; and I don’t know that I would desire to 
change that sensation of awe and terror which the hour’s walk 
occasioned, for a greater familiarity with this wild, sad, lonely 
place. The solitude is awful. I can’t understand liow those 
chattering guides dare to lift up their voices here, and cry for 
money. 

It looks like the beginning of the world, somehow : the sea 
looks older than in other places, the hills and rocks strange, and 
formed differently from other rocks and liills — as those vast dubious 
monsters were formed who possessed the earth before man. The 
hill-tops are shattered into a thousand cragged fantastical shapes ; 
the water comes swelling into scores of little strange creeks, or goes 
off with a leap, roaring into those mysterious caves yonder, which 
penetrate who knows how far into our common world. The savage 
rock-sides are painted of a hundred colours. Does the sun ever 
sliine here? When the world was moulded and fashioned out of 
formless chaos, this must have been the hit over — a remnant of 
chaos ! Think of that ! — it is a tailor’s simile. Well, I am a 
cockney : I wish I were in Pall Mall ! Yonder is a kelp-burner : a 
lurid smoke from his burning kelp rises up to the leaden sky, and 
he looks as naked and fierce as Cain. Bubbling up out of the 
rocks at the very brim of the sea rises a little crystal spring : how 
comes it there ? and there is an old grey hag beside, who has been 
there for hundreds and hundreds of years, and there sits and sells 
whisky at the extremity of creation ! How do you dare to sell 
whisky there, old woman ? Did you serve old Saturn with a glass 
when he lay along the Causeway here? In reply, she says, she 
has no change for a shilling : she never has ; but her -whisky 
is good. 

This is not a description of the Giant’s Causeway (as some 


A SUMMONS TO DINNER 


547 


clever critic vrill remark), but of a Londoner there, who is by 
no means so interesting an object as the natural curiosity in 
question. That single hint is sufficient; I have not a word more 
to say. “ If,” says he, “ you cannot describe the scene lying before 
us — if you cannot state from your personab observation that the 
number of basaltic jullars composing the Causeway has been com- 
puted at about forty thousand, which vary in diameter, their surface 
})resenting the appearance of a tesselated pavement of polygonal 
stones — that each pillar is formed of several distinct joints, the 
convex end of the one being accurately fitted in the concave of the 
next, and the length of the joints varying from five feet to four 
inches — that although the pillars are polygonal, there is but one 
of three sides in the whole forty thousand (think of that !), but 
three of nine sides, and that it may be safely computed that ninety- 
nine out of one hundred pillars iiave either five, six, or seven sides ; 
— if you cannot state something useful, you had much better, sir, 
retire and get your dinner.” 

Never was summons more gladly obeyed. Tlie dinner must be 
ready by this time ; so, remain you, and look on at the awful scene, 
and copy it down in words if you can. If at the end of the trial 
you are dissatisfied with your skill as a painter, and find that the 
biggest of your words cannot render the hues and vastness of that 
tremendous swelling sea — of those lean solitary crags standing rigid 
along the shore, where they have been watching the ocean ever since 
it was made — of those grey towers of Dunluce standing upon a 
leaden rock, and looking as if some old old princess, of old old fairy 
times, were dragon-guarded within — of yon flat stretches of sand 
where the Scotch and Irish mermaids hold conference — come away, 
too, and prate no more about the scene ! There is that in nature, 
dear Jenkins, which passes even our powers. We can feel the 
beauty of a magnificent landscape, perhaps : but we can describe 
a leg of mutton and turnips better. Come, then, this scene is for 
our betters to depict. If Mr. Tennyson were to come hither for a 
month, and brood over the place, he might, in some of those lofty 
heroic lines which the author of the “ Morte ’d’Arthur ” knows how 
to pile up, convey to the reader a sense of this gigantic desolate 
scene. What! you, too, are a poet'? Well, then, Jenkins, stay! 
but believe me, you liad best take my advice, and come off. 

The worthy landlady made her appearance with the politest of 
bows and an apology, — for what does the reader think a lady should 
apologise in the most lonely rude spot in the world '? — because a 
plain servant-woman was about to bring in the dinner, the waiter 
being absent on leave at Coleraine ! 0 heaven and earth ! where 


548 


THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK 


will the genteel end 1 I replied philosophically that I did not care 
twopence for the plainness or beauty of the waiter, but that it was 
the dinner I looked to, the frying whereof made a great noise in 
the huge lonely house ; and it must be said, that though the lady 
ivas plain, the repast was exceedingly good. “ I have expended 
my little all,” says the landlady, stepping in with a speech after 
dinner, “in the building of this establishment; and though to a 
man its i)rofits may appear small, to such a being as I am it will 
bring, I trust, a sufficient return ; ” and on my asking her why she 
took the place, slie replied that she had always, from her earliest 
youth, a fancy to dwell in that spot, and had accordingly realised 
lier wish by building this hotel — this mausoleum. In spite of the 
bright fire, and the good dinner, and the good wine, it was im- 
possible to feel comfortable in the place ; and when the car-wheels 
were heard, I jumped up with joy to take my departure and forget 
the awful lonely shore, and that wild, dismal, genteel inn. A ride 
over a wide gusty country, in a grey, misty, half-moonlight, the loss 
of a wheel at Bushmills, and the escape from a tumble, were the 
delightful varieties after tlie late awful occurrences. “ Such a being ” 
as I am would die of loneliness in that hotel ; and so let all brother 
cockneys be warned. 

Some time before we came to it, we saw the long line of mist 
that lay above the Bann, and coming through a dirty suburb of low 
cottages, passed down a broad street with gas and lamps in it 
(thank Heaven, there are people once more !), and at length drove 
uj) in state, across a gas-pipe, in a market-place, before an hotel in 
the town of Coleraine, famous for linen and for Beautiful Kitty, 
who must be old and ugly now, for it’s a good five-and-thirty years 
since she broke her pitcher, according to Mr. Moore’s account of her. 
The scene as we entered the “ Diamond ” was rather a lively one — 
a score of little stalls were brilliant with lights ; the people were 
thronging in the place making their Saturday bargains ; the town 
clock began to toll nine ; and hark ! faithful to a minute, the horn 
of the Derry mail was heard tootooing, and four commercial gentle- 
men, with Scotch accents, rushed into the hotel at the same time 
with myself 

Among the beauties of Coleraine may be mentioned the price of 
lieef, which a gentleman told me may be had for fourpence a pound ; 
and I saw him purchase an excellent codfish for a shilling. I am 
bound, too, to state for the benefit of aspiring Radicals, what two 
Conservative citizens of the place stated to me, viz. : — that though 
there were two Conservative candidates then canvassing the town, 
on account of a vacancy in the representation, the voters were so 
truly liberal that they would elect any person of any other political 


COLERAINE 


549 

creed, who would simply bring money enough to purchase their 
votes. There are 220 voters, it appears ; of whom it is not, how- 
ever, necessary to “argue” with more than fifty, who alone are 
open to conviction ; but as parties arc pretty equally balanced, the 
votes of the quinquagint, of course, carry an immense weight with 
them. Well, this is all discussed calmly standing on an inn steps, 
with a jolly landlord and a professional man of the town to give the 
information. So, Heaven bless us, the ways of London are begin- 
ning to be known even here. Gentility has already taken up her 
seat in tlie Giant’s Causeway, where she apologises for the plainness 
of her look : and, lo ! here is bribery, as bold as in the most 
civilised places — hundreds and hundreds of miles away from St. 
Stephen’s and Pall Mall. I wonder, in that little island of Raghery, 
so wild and lonely, whether civilisation is beginning to dawn upon 
them ? — whether they bribe and are genteel ? But for the rough 
sea of yesterday, I think I would have fled thither to make the 
trial. \ 

The town of Coleraine, with a number of cabin suburbs belong- 
ing to it, lies picturesquely grouped on the Bann river ; and the 
whole of the little city was echoing with psalms as I walked through 
it on the Sunday morning. The piety of the people seems remark- 
able ; some of the inns even will not receive travellers on Sunday ; 
and this is written in an hotel, of which every room is provided 
with a Testament, containing an injunction on the part of the 
landlord to consider this world itself as only a passing abode. Is 
it well that Boniface should furnish his guest with Bibles as well 
as bills, and sometimes shut his door on a traveller, who has no 
other choice but to reach it on a Sunday ? I heard of a gentleman 
arriving from shipboard at Kilrush on a Sunday, when the pious 
hotel-keeper refused him admittance ; and some more tales, which 
to go into would require the introduction of private names and 
circumstances, but would tend to show that the Protestant of 
the North is as much priest-ridden as the Catholic of the 
South : — priest and old-woman-ridden, for there are certain ex- 
pounders of doctrine in our Church, who are not, I believe, to 
be found in the Church of Rome; and woe betide the stranger 
who comes to settle in these parts, if his “seriousness” be not 
satisfactory to the heads (with false fronts to most of them) of the 
congregations. 

Look at that little snug harbour of Portrush ! a hideous new 
castle standing on a rock protects it on one side, a snug row of 
gentlemen’s cottages curves round the shore facing northward, a 
bath-house, an hotel, more smart houses, face the beach westward, 
defended by another mound of rocks. In the centre of the little 


550 


THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK 


town stands a new-built church; and the whole place has an air 
of comfort and neatness which is seldom seen in Ireland. One 
would fancy that all the tenants of these pretty snug habitations, 
sheltered in this nook far away from the W’orld, have nothing to 
do but to be happy, and spend their little comfortable means in 
snug little hospitalities among one anbther, and kind little charities 
among the poor. What does a man in active life ask for more than 
to retire to such a competence, to such a snug nook of the world ; 
and there repose with a stock of healthy children round the fireside, 
a friend within call, and the means of decent hospitality wherewith 
to treat him ? 

Let any one meditating this pleasant sort of retreat, and charmed 
with the look of this or that place as peculiarly suited to his purpose, 
take a special care to understand his neighbourhood first, before he 
commit himself, by lease-signing or house-buying. It is not sulficient 
that you should be honest, kind-hearted, hospitable, of good family ; 
— what are your opinions upon religious subjects ? Are they such 
as agree with the notions of old Lady This, or Mrs. That, who are 
the patronesses of the village 1 If not, woe betide you ! you will 
be shunned by the rest of the society, thwarted in your attempts 
to do good, whispered against over evangelical bohea and serious 
muffins. Lady This will inform every new arrival that you are a 
reprobate, and lost : and Mrs. That will consign you and your 
daughters, and your wife (a worthy woman, but, alas ! united to 
that sad worldly man !) to damnation. The clergyman who par- 
takes of the muffins and bohea before mentioned, will very possibly 
preach sermons against you from the pulpit : this was not done at 
Portstewart to my knowledge, but I have had the pleasure of sitting 
under a minister in Ireland who insulted the very patron who gave 
him his living, discoursing upon the sinfulness of partridge-shooting, 
and threatening hell-fire as the last “ meet ” for fox-hunters ; until 
the squire, one of the best and most charitable resident landlords 
in Ireland, was absolutely driven out of the church where his 
fathers had worshipped for hundreds of years, by the insults of this 
howling evangelical inquisitor. 

So much as this I did not hear at Portstewart ; but I was told 
that at yonder neat-looking bath-house a dying woman was denied 
a bath on a Sunday. By a clause of the lease by which the bath- 
owner rents his establishment, he is forbidden to give baths to 
any one on the Sunday. The landlord of the inn, forsooth, shuts liis 
gates on the same day, and his conscience on week-days will not 
allow him to supply his guests with whisky or ardent spirits. I 
was told by my friend, that because he refused to subscribe for 
some fancy charity, he received a letter to state that “he spent 


HYPOCRISY 


551 


more in one dinner than in charity in the course of the year.” My 
worthy friend did not care to contradict the statement, as why 
should a man deign to meddle with such a lie ? But think how all 
the fishes, and all the pieces of meat, and all the people who went 
in and out of his snug cottage by the seaside must have been 
watched by the serious round about ! The sea is not more constant 
roaring there, tlian scandal is whispering. How happy I felt, while 
hearing these histories (demure heads in crimped caps peeping over 
the blinds at us as we walked on the beach), to think I am a 
cockney, and don’t know the name of the man who lives next 
door to me. 

I have heard various stories, of course from persons of various 
ways of thinking, charging their opponents with hypocrisy, and 
proving the cliarge by statements clearly showing that the priests, 
the preachers, or the professing religionists in question, belied their 
professions woefully by their practice. But in matters of religion, 
hypocrisy is so awful a charge to make against a man, that I think 
it is almost unfair to mention even the cases in which it is proven, 
and which, — as, pray God, they are but exceptional, — a person 
should be very careful of mentioning, lest they be considered to 
apply generally. “ Tartufie ” has been always a disgusting play 
to me to see, in spite of its sense and its wit ; and so, instead of 
printing, here or elsewhere, a few stories of the Tartufie kind which 
I have heard in Ireland, the best way will be to try and forget 
them. It is an awful thing to say of any man walking under 
God’s sun by the side of us, “You are a hypocrite, lying as you 
use the Most Sacred Name, knowing that you lie while you use it.” 
Let it be the privilege of any sect that is so minded, to imagine 
that there is perdition in store for all the rest of God’s creatures 
who do not think with them : but the easy countercharge of 
hypocrisy, which the world has been in the habit of making in its 
tuni, is surely just as fatal and bigoted an accusati-on as any that 
the sects make against the world. 

What has this disquisition to do a 2^'i'opos of a walk on 
the beach at Portstewart '? Why, it may be made here as well 
as in other parts of Ireland, or elsewhere as well, perhaps, as 
liere. It is the most priest-ridden of countries : Catholic clergy- 
men lord it over their ragged flocks, as Protestant preachers, 
lay and clerical, over their more genteel co-religionists. Bound to 
inculcate peace and goodwill, their whole life is one of enmity and 
distrust. 

Walking away from the little bay and the disquisition which 
has somehow been raging there, we went across some wild dreary 
highlands to the neighbouring little town of Portrush, where is a 


552 


THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK 


neat town and houses, and a harbour, and a new church too, so like 
the last-named place that I thought for a moment we had only 
made a round, and were back again at Portstewart. Some gentle- 
men of the place, and my guide, who had a neighbourly liking for 
it, showed me the new church, and seemed to be well pleased with 
the edifice ; which is, indeed, a neat and convenient one, of a rather 
irregular Gothic. The best thing about the chirrch, I think, was 
the history of it. The old church had lain some miles off, in the 
most inconvenient part of the parish, whereupon the clergyman and 
some of the gentry had raised a subscription in order to build the 
present church. The expenses liad exceeded the estimates, or the 
subscriptions had fallen short of the sums necessary ; and the 
church, in consequence, was opened with a debt on it, which the 
rector and two more of the gentry had taken on their shoulders. 
The living is a small one ; the other two gentlemen going bail for 
the edifice not so rich as to think light of the payment of a couple 
of hundred pounds beyond their previous subscriptions ; the lists 
are therefore still open ; and the clergyman expressed himself per- 
fectly satisfied either that he would be reimbursed one day or other, 
or that he would be able to make out the payment of the money 
for which he stood engaged. Most of the Roman Catholic 
churches that I have seen through the country have been built 
in this way, — begun when money enough was levied for con- 
structing the foundation, elevated by degrees as fresh subscriptions 
came in, and finished — by the way, I don’t think I have seen one 
finished; but there is something noble in the spirit (however 
certain economists may cavil at it) that leads people to commence 
these pious undertakings with the firm trust that “ Heaven will 
provide.” 

Eastward from Portrush, we came upon a beautiful level sand 
which leads to the White Rocks, a famous place of resort for the 
frequenters of the neighbouring watering-places. Here are caves, 
and for a considerable distance a view of the wild and gloomy 
Antrim coast as far as Bengore. Midway, jutting into the sea (and 
I was glad it was so far off), was the Causeway ; and nearer the 
grey towers of Dunluce. 

Looking north, were the blue Scotch hills and the neighbouring 
Raghery Island. Nearer Portrush were two rocky islands, called 
the Skerries, of which a sportsman of our party vaunted the 
capabilities, regretting that my stay was not longer, so that I 
might land and shoot a few ducks there. This unlucky lateness 
of the season struck me also as a most afflicting circumstance. He 
said also that fish were caught off the island — not fish good to eat, 
but very strong at pulling, eager of biting, and affording a great 


LEAVING THE ANTRIM COAST 


553 


deal of sport. And so we turned our backs once more upon the 
Giant’s Causeway, and the grim coast on which it lies ; and as iny 
taste in life leads me to prefer looking at the smiling fresh face of 
a young cheerful beauty, rather than at the fierce countenance and 
high features of a dishevelled Meg Merrilies, I must say again that 
I was glad to turn my back on this severe part of the Antrim coast, 
and my steps towards Derry. 


CHAPTER XXX 


PEG OF LIMAVADDY 


ETWEEN Coleraine and Derry there is a daily car (besides 



one or two occasional queer-looking coaches), and I had this 


vehicle, with an intelligent driver, and a horse with a hideous 
raw on his shoulder, entirely to myself for the five-and-twenty 
miles of our journey. The cabins of Coleraine are not parted with 
in a hurry, and we crossed the bridge, and went up and down the 
hills of one of the suburban streets, the Bann flowing picturesquely 
to our left ; a large Catholic chapel, the before-mentioned cabins, 
and farther on, some neat-looking houses and plantations, to our 
right. Then we began ascending wild lonely hills, pools of bog 
shining here and there amongst them, with birds both black and 
white, both geese and crows, on the hunt. Some of the stubble 
was already ploughed up, but by the side of most cottages you saw 
a black potato-field that it was time to dig now, for the weather 
was changing and the winds beginning to roar. Woods, whenever 
we passed them, were flinging round eddies of mustard-coloured 
leaves ; the white trunks of lime and ash trees beginning to look 
very bare. 

Then we stopped to give the raw-backed horse water; then 
we trotted down a hill with a noble bleak prospect of Lough Foyle 
and the surrounding mountains before us, until we reached the 
town of Xewtown Limavaddy, where the raw-backed horse was 
exchanged for another not much more agreeable in his appearance, 
though, like his comrade, not slow on the road. 

Newtown Limavaddy is the third tovui in the county of London- 
derry. It comprises three well-built streets, the others are inferior ; 
it is, however, respectably inhabited : all this may be true, as the 
well-informed Cuide-book avers, but I am bound to say that I -was 
thinking of something else as we drove through the town, having 
fallen eternally in love during the ten minutes of our stay. 

Yes, Peggy of Limavaddy, if Barrow and Inglis have gone to 
Connemara to fall in love witli the Misses Flynn, let us be allowed 
to come to Ulster and offer a tribute of praise at your feet — at your 
stockingless feet, 0 Margaret ! Do you remember the October day 


PEG OF LIMAVADDY 


555 


(’twas the first day of the hard weather), when the wayworn 
traveller entered your inn 1 But the circumstances of this passion 
had better be chronicled in deathless verse. 

PEG OF LIMAVADDY 

Riding from Coleraine 
(Famed for lovely Kitty), 

Came a cockney bound 
Unto Derry City ; 

Weary was his soul. 

Shivering and sad he 
Bumped along the road 
Leads to Limavaddy. 


Mountains stretch’d around, 
Gloomy was their tinting. 

And the horses hoofs 
Made a dismal dinting ; 

Wind upon the heath 
Howling was and piping. 

On the heath and bog, 

Black with many a snipe in ; 
’Mid the bogs of black 

Silver pools were flashing, 

Crows upon their sides 

Picking were and splashing ; 
Cockney on the car 
Closer folds his plaid y. 
Grumbling at the road 
Leads to Limavaddy. 

Through the crashing woods 
Autumn brawl’d and bluster’d, 
Tossing round about 

Leaves the hue of mustard ; 
Yonder lay Lough Foyle, 

Which a storm was whipping, 
Covering with mist 

Lake, and shores, and shipping. 
Up and down the hill 

(Nothing could be bolder). 
Horse went with a raw, 

Bleeding on his shoulder. 

“ Where are horses changed ? ” 
Said I to the laddy 
Driving on the box : 

“Sir, at Limavaddy.” 


556 ' 


THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK 


Limavaddy inn’s 

But a humble baithouse, 

Where you may procure 
Whisky and potatoes ; 

Landlord at the door 
Gives a smiling welcome 
To the shivering wights 
Who to his hotel come. 

Landlady within 
Sits and knits a stocking, 

With a wary foot 

Baby's cradle rocking. 

To the chimney nook 

Having found admittance, 

There I watch a pup 

Playing with two kittens 
(Playing round the fire. 

Which of blazing turf is. 

Roaring to the pot 
Which bubbles with the murphies) ; 
And the cradled babe 

Fond the mother nursed it ! 

Singing it a song 

As she twists the worsted ! 

Up and down the stair 
Two more young ones patter 
(Twins were never seen 
Dirtier nor fatter) ; 

Both have mottled legs, 

Both have snubby noses. 

Both have — Here the Host 
Kindly interposes : 

“ Sure you must be froze 
With the sleet and hail, sir, 

So will you have some punch, 

Or will you have some ale, sir ? ” 

Presently a maid 
Enters with the liquor 
(Half-a-pint of ale 
Frothing in a beaker). 

Gods ! I didn’t know 
What my beating heart meant, 
Hebe’s self I thought 
Enter’d the apartment. 

As she came she smiled. 

And the smile bewitching, 

On my word and honour. 

Lighted all the kitchen ! 


557 


PEG OF LIMAVADDY 

With a curtsey neat 
Greeting the new-comer, 

Lovely smiling Peg 
Offers me the rummer ; 

But my trembling hand 
Up the beaker tilted, 

And the glass of ale 
Every drop I spilt it : 

Spilt it every drop 
(Dames, who read my volumes, 
Pardon such a word) 

On my what-d’ye-call-’ems ! 

Witnessing the sight 
Of that dire disaster. 

Out began to laugh 

Missis, maid, and master ; 

Such a merry peal, 

’Specially Miss Peg’s was 
(As the glass of ale 
Trickling down my legs was), 
That the joyful sound 
Of that ringing laughter 
Echoed in my ears 

Many a long day after. 

Such a silver peal ! 

In the meadows listening. 

You who’ve heard the bells 
Ringing to a christening ; 

You who ever heard 
Caradori pretty, 

Smiling like an angel 
Singing “ Giovinetti,” 

Fancy Peggy’s laugh, 

Sweet, and clear and cheerful, 

At my pantaloons 

With half-a-pint of beer full ! 

When the laugh was done. 

Peg, the pretty hussy. 

Moved about the room 
Wonderfully busy ; 

Now' she looks to see 
If the kettle keep hot, 

Now she rubs the spoons, 

Now she cleans the teapot ; 

Now she sets the cups 
'Primly and secure, 

Now' she scours a pot. 

And so it was I drew her. 


558 


THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK 


Thus it was I drew her 
Scouring of a kettle. * 

(Faith ! her blushing cheeks 
Redden’d on the metal !) 

Ah ! but ’tis in vain 
That I try to sketch it ; 

The pot perhaps is like, 

But Peggy’s face is wretched. 



No : the best of lead, 

And of Indian-rubber, 
Never could depict 
That sweet kettle-scrubber ! 


* The lato Mr. Pope represents Camilla as '^scouring the plain," an absurd 
and useless task. Peggy’s occupation with the kettle is much more simple and 
noble. The second line of this verse (whereof the author scorns to deny an 
obligation) is from the celebrated “Frithiof” of Esaias Tigner. A maiden is 
serving warriors to drink, and is standing by a shield — “ Und die Runde des 
Schildcs ward wie das Miigdelein roth,” — perhaps the above is the best thing in 
both poems. 


PEG OF LIMAVADDY 


559 


See her as she moves ! 

Scarce the ground she touches, 
Airy as a fay, 

Graceful as a duchess ; 

Bare her rounded arm, 

Bare her little leg is, 

Vestris never showed 
Ankles like to Peggy’s ; 
Braided is her hair, 

Soft her look and modest, 

Slim her little waist 
Comfortably bodiced. 


This I do declare, 

Happy is the laddy 
Who the heart can share 
Of Peg of Limavaddy ; 
Married if she were. 

Blest would be the daddy 
Of the children fair 
Of Peg of Limavaddy ; 
Beauty is not rare 
In the land of Paddy, 

Fair beyond compare 
Is Peg of Limavaddy. 

Citizen or squire, 

Tory, Whig, or Eadi- 
cal would all desire 
Peg of Limavaddy. 

Had I Homer’s fire, 

Or that of Sergeant Taddy, 
Meetly I’d admire 
Peg of Limavaddy. 

And till I expire, 

Or till I grow mad, I 
Will sing unto my lyre 
Peg of Limavaddy ! 


CHAPTER XXXI 
TEMPLE MOYLE— DERRY 

F rom Newtown Limavaddy to Derry tlie traveller has many 
wild and noble prospects of Lough Foyle and the plains and 
mountains round it, and of scenes which may possibly in this 
country be still more agreeable to him — of smiling cultivation, and 
comfortable well-built villages, such as are only too rare in Ireland. 
Of a great part of this district the London Companies are landlords 
— the best of landlords, too, according to the report I could gather ; 
and their good stewardship shows itself especially in the neat 
villages of Muff and Ballikelly, through botli of which I passed. In 
Ballikelly, besides numerous simple, stout, brick-built dwellings for 
the peasantry, with their shining windows and trim garden-plots, 
is a Presbyterian meeting-house, so well-built, substantial and 
handsome, so different from the lean, pretentious, sham-Gothic 
ecclesiastical edifices which have been erected of late years in Ireland, 
that it can’t fail to strike the tourist who has made architecture his 
study or his pleasure. The gentlemen’s seats in the district are 
numerous and handsome : and the whole movement along the road 
betokened cheerfulness and prosperous activity. 

As the carman had no other passengers but myself, he made no 
objection to carry me a couple of miles out of his way, through the vil- 
lage of Muff, belonging to the Grocers of London (and so handsomely 
and comfortably built by them as to cause all cockneys to exclaim, 
‘•Well done our side!”), and thence to a very interesting institu- 
tion, which was established some fifteen years since in the neigh- 
bourhood — the Agricultural Seminary of Templemoyle. It lies on a 
hill in a pretty wooded country, and is most curiously secluded from 
the world by the tortuousness of the road which approaches it. 

Of course it is not my business to report upon the agricultural 
system practised there, or to discourse on the state of the land or 
the crops ; the best testimony on this subject is the fact, that the 
Institution hired, at a small rental, a tract of land, which was re- 
edaimed and farmed, and that of this farm the landlord has now taken 
possession, leaving the young farmers to labour on a new tract of 
land, for which they pay five times as much rent, as for their former 
holding. But though a person versed in agriculture could give a 


TEMPLEMOYLE SEMINARY 


561 


far more satisfactory account of the place than one to whom such 
pursuits are quite unfamiliar, there is a great deal about the 
establishment which any citizen can remark on ; and he must be a 
very difficult cockney indeed wlio won’t be pleased here. 

After winding in and out, and up and down, and round about 
the eminence on which the house stands, we at last found an entrance 
to it, by a courtyard, neat, well built, and spacious, where are the 
stables and numerous offices of the farm. The scholars were at 
dinner off a comfortable meal of boiled beef, potatoes, and cabbages, 
when I arrived ; a master was reading a book of history to them ; 
and silence, it appears, is preserved during the dinner. Seventy 
scholars were here assembled, some young, and some expanded into 
six feet and whiskers — all, however, are made to maintain exactly 
the same discipline, whether whiskered or not. 

The “ head farmer ” of the school, Mr. Campbell, a very intelli^ 
gent Scotch gentleman, was good enough to conduct me over the 
place and the farm, and to give a history of the establishment and 
the course pursued there. The Seminary was founded in 1827, by 
the North-West of Ireland Society, by members of which and others 
about three thousand pounds were subscribed, and the buildings of 
the school erected. These are spacious, simple, and comfortable ; 
there is a good stone house, with airy dormitories, schoolrooms, &c., 
and large and convenient offices. The establishment had, at first, 
some difficulties to contend with, and for some time did not number 
more than thirty pupils. At present, there are seventy scholars, 
paying ten pounds a year, with which sum, and the labour of the 
pupils on the farm, and the produce of it, the school is entirely 
supported. The reader will, perhaps, like to see an extract from 
the Report of the school, which contains more details regarding it. 


“ TEMPLEMOYLE WORK AND SCHOOL TABLE. 
“ From 20th March to 2?>rd September. 


“ Boys divided into two classes, A and B. 


Hours. 

At work. 

At school. 

51 

All rise. 


6—8 

A 

B 

8—9 

Breakfast. 


9—1 

A 

B 

1—2 

Dinner and recreation. 


2—6 

B 

A 

6—7 

Recreation. 


7—9 

Prepare lessons for next day. 


9 

To bed. 



2 N 


5 


562 


THE IRISH’ SKETCH BOOK 


“ On Tuesday B commences work in the morning and A at 
school, and so on alternate days. 

“ Each class is again subdivided into three divisions, over each 
of which is placed a monitor, selected from the steadiest and 
best-informed boys ; he receives the Head Farmer’s directions 
as to the work to be done, and superintends his party while per- 
forming it. 

“ In winter the time of labour is shortened according to the 
length of the day, and the hours at school increased. 

“ In wet days, when the boys cannot work out, all are required 
to attend school. 


“ Dietaey. 

“ Breakfast . — Eleven ounces of oatmeal made in stirabout, one 
pint of sweet' milk. 

“ Sunday — Three-quarters of a pound of beef stewed 

with pepper and onions, or one half-pound of corned beef with 
cabbage, and three and a half pounds of potatoes. 

“Monday — One half-pound of ijickled beef, three and a half 
pounds of potatoes, one pint of buttermilk. 

“Tuesday — Broth made of one half-pound of beef, with leeks, 
cabbage, and parsley, and three and a half pounds of potatoes. 

“Wednesday — Two ounces of butter, eight ounces of oatmeal 
made into bread, three and a half pounds of potatoes, and one pint 
of sweet milk. 

“Thursday — Half-a-pound of pickled pork, with cabbage or 
turnips, and three and a half pounds of potatoes. 

“ Friday — Two ounces of butter, eight ounces wheatmeal made 
into bread, one pint of sweet milk or fresh buttermilk, three and a 
half pounds of potatoes. 

“ Saturday — Two ounces of butter, one pound of potatoes 
mashed, eight ounces of wheatmeal made into bread, two and a 
half pounds of potatoes, one pint of buttermilk. 

^’‘Supper . — In summer, flummery made of one pound of oat- 
meal seeds, and one pint of sweet milk. In vdnter, three and a 
half pounds of potatoes, and one pint of buttermilk or sweet milk. 

“Rules for the Templemoyle School. 

“ 1. The pupils are required to say their prayers in the morn- 
ing, before leaving the dormitory, and at night, before retiring to 
rest, each separately, and after the manner to which he has been 
habituated 

“ 2. The pupils are requested to wash their hands and faces 


TEMPLEMOYLE SCHOOL 563 

before the commencement of business in the morning, on returning 
from agricultural labour, and after dinner. 

“ 3. The pupils are required to pay the strictest attention to 
their instructors, both during the hours of agricultural and literary 
occupation. 

“ 4. Strife, disobedience, inattention, or any description of 
riotous or disorderly conduct, is punishable by extra labour or 
confinement, as directed by the Committee, according to circum- 
stances. 

“ 5. Diligent and respectful behaviour, continued for a consider- 
able time, will be rewarded by occasional permission for the pupil 
so distinguished to visit his home. 

“ 6. No pupil, on obtaining leave of absence, shall presume to 
continue it for a longer period than that prescribed to him on 
leaving the Seminary. 

“ 7. During their rural labour, the pupils are to consider them- 
selves amenable to the authority of their Agricultural Instructor 
alone, and during their attendance in the schoolroom, to that of 
their Literary Instructor alone. 

“ 8. Non-attendance during any part of the time allotted either 
for literary or agricultural employment, will be punished as a serious 
offence. 

“ 9. During the hours of recreation the pupils are to be under 
the superintendence of their Instructors, and not suffered to pass 
beyond the limits of the farm, except under their guidance, or with 
a written permission from one of them. 

“ 10. The pupils are required to make up their beds,, and keep 
those clothes not in immediate use neatly folded up in their trunks, 
and to be particular in never suffering any garment, book, imple- 
ment, or other article belonging to or used by them, to lie about in 
a slovenly or disorderly manner. 

“II. Respect to superiors, and gentleness of demeanour, both 
among the pupils themselves and towards the servants and labourers 
of the establishment, are particularly insisted upon, and will be 
considered a prominent ground of approbation and reward. 

“ 12. On Sundays the pupils are required to attend their 
respective places of worship, accompanied by their Instructors or 
Monitors ; and it is earnestly recommended to them to employ a 
part of the remainder of the day in sincerely reading the Word of 
God, and in such other devotional exercises as their respective 
ministers may point out.” 

At certain periods of the year, when all hands are required, 
such as harvest, &c., the literary labours of the scholars are stopped. 


564 


THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK 


and they are all in the field. On the present occasion we followed 
them into a potato-field, where an army of them were employed 
digging out the potatoes ; while another regiment were trenching-in 
elsewhere for the winter : the boys were leading the carts to and 
fro. To reach the potatoes we had to pass a field, part of which 
was newly ploughed : the ploughing was the work of the boys, too ; 
one of them being left -with an experienced ploughman for a fort- 
night at a time, in which space the lad can acquire some practice 
in the art. Amongst the potatoes and the boys digging them, I 
observed a number of girls taking them up as dug and removing the 
soil from the roots. Such a society for seventy young men would, 
in any other country in the world, be not a little dangerous ; but 
Mr. Campbell said that no instance of harm liad ever occurred in 
consequence, and I believe his statement may be fully relied on : 
the whole country bears testimony to this noble purity of morals. 
Is there any other in Europe which in this point can compare 
with it? 

In winter the farm-works do not occupy the pupils so much, 
and they giv^e more time to their literary studies. They get a good 
English education; they are grounded in arithmetic and mathe- 
matics ; and I saw a good map of an adjacent farm, made from 
actual survey by one of the pupils. Some of them are good 
draughtsmen likewise, but of their performances I could see no 
specimen, the artists being abroad, occupied wisely in digging the 
potatoes. 

And here, a x>Topo$,^ not of the school but of potatoes, let me 
tell a potato story, which is, I think, to the purpose, wherever it is 
told. In the county of Mayo a gentleman by the name of Crofton 
is a landed proprietor, in whose neighbourhood great distress pre- 
vailed among the peasantry during the spring and summer, when 
the potatoes of the last year were consumed, and before those of the 
present season were up. Mr. Crofton, by liberal donations on his 
own part, and by a subscription which was set on foot among his 
friends in England as well as in Ireland, was enabled to collect a 
sum of money sufficient to purchase meal for the people, which was 
given to them, or sold at very low prices, until the pressure of want 
was withdrawn, and the blessed potato-crop came in. Some time 
in October, a smart night’s frost made Mr. Crofton think that it 
was time to take in and pit his own potatoes, and he told his 
steward to get labourers accordingly. 

Next day, on going to the potato-grounds, he found the whole 
fields swarming with people ; the whole crop was out of the ground, 
and again under it, pitted and covered, and tbe people gone, in a 
few hours. It was as if the fairies that we read of in the Irish 


TEMPLEMOYLE SCHOOL 


565 


legends, as coming to the aid of good people and helping them in 
their labours, had taken a liking to this good landlord, and taken 
in his harvest for him. Mr. Crofton, who knew wlio his helpers 
had been, sent the steward to pay them their day’s wages, and to 
thank them at the same time for having come to help him at a 
time when their labour was so useful to him. One and all refused 
a penny ; and their spokesman said, “ They wished they could do 
more for the likes of him or his family.” I have heard of many 
conspiracies in this country ; is nof this one as worthy to be told 
as any of them 1 

Round the house of Templemoyle is a pretty garden, which the 
pupils take pleasure in cultivating, filled not with fruit (for this, 
though there are seventy gardeners, the superintendent said somehow 
seldom reached a ripe state), but with kitchen herbs, and a few beds 
of pretty flowers, such as are best suited to cottage horticulture. 
Such simple carpenters’ and masons’ work as the young men can do 
is likewise confided to them ; and though the dietary may appear 
to the Englishman as rather a scanty one, and though the English 
lads certainly make at first very wry faces at the stirabout porridge 
(as they naturally will when first put in the presence of that 
abominable mixture), yet after a time, strange to say, they begin 
to find it actually palatable ; and the best proof of the excellence of 
the diet is, that nobody is ever ill in the institution ; colds and fevers 
and the ailments of lazy gluttonous gentility, are unknown ; and the 
doctor’s bill for the last year, for seventy pupils, amounted to thirty- 
five shillings. 0 beati agricoliculcB ! You do not know what it 
is to feel a little uneasy after half-a-crown’s worth of raspberry-tarts, 
as lads do at the best public schools ; you don’t know in what 
majestic polished hexameters the Roman poet has described your 
pursuits ; you are not fagged and flogged into Latin and Greek at 
the cost of two hundred pounds a year. Let these be the privileges 
of your youthful betters ; meanwhile content yourselves with think- 
ing that you are preparing for a profession, while they are not ; 
that you are learning something useful, while they, for the most 
part, are not : for after all, as a man grows old in the world, old 
and fat, cricket is discovered not to be any longer very advantageous 
to him — even to have pulled in the Trinity boat does not in old age 
amount to a substantial advantage ; and though to read a Greek 
play be an immense pleasure, yet it must be confessed few enjoy it. 
In the first place, of the race of Etonians, and Harrovians, and 
Carthusians that one meets in the world, very few can read the 
Greek ; of those few — there are not, as I believe, any considerable 
majority of poets. Stout men in the bow-windows of clubs (for such 
young Etonians by time become) are not generally remarkable for a 


566 


THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK 


taste for jEschylus.* You do not hear much poetry in Westminster 
Hall, or I believe at the bar-tables afterwards ; and if occasionally, 
in the House of Commons, Sir Robert Peel lets off a quotation — 
a pocket-pistol wadded with a leaf torn out of Horace — depend on 
it, it is only to astonish the country gentlemen who don’t understand 
him : and it is my firm conviction that Sir Robert no more cares 
for poetry than you or I do. 

Such thoughts would suggest themselves to a man who has had 
the benefit of what is called an education at a public school in 
England, when he sees seventy lads from all parts of the empire 
learning what his Latin poets and philosophers have informed him 
is the best of all pursuits, — finds them educated at one-twentieth 
part of the cost which has been bestowed on his own precious 
person ; orderly witliout the necessity of submitting to degrading 
personal punisliment ; young, and full of health and blood, though 
vice is unknown among them ; and brought up decently and 
honestly to know the things which it is good for them in their pro- 
fession to know. So it is, however : all the world is improving 
except the gentlemen. There are at this present writing five 
hundred boys at Eton', kicked, and licked, and bullied by another 
hundred — scrubbing shoes, running errands, making false concords, 
and (as if that were a natural consequence !) putting their posteriors 
on a block for Dr. Hawtrey to lash at ; and still calling it education. 
Tliey are proud of it — good heavens ! — absolutely vain of it ; as 
what dull barbarians are not proud of their dulness and barbarism ? 
They call it the good old English system : nothing like classics, 
says Sir John, to give a boy a taste, you know, and a habit of 
reading — (Sir John, who reads the “ Racing Calendar,” and belongs 
to a race of men of all the world the least given to reading) — it’s 
the good old English system ; every boy fights for himself — hardens 
’em, eh. Jack? Jack grins, and helps himself to another glass of 
claret, and presently tells you how Tibbs and Miller fought for an 
hour and twenty minutes “like good uns.” . . . Let us come to 
an end, however, of this moralising; the car-driver has brought 
the old raw-shouldered horse out of the stable, and says it is time 
to be off again. 

Before quitting Templemoyle, one thing more may be said in 
its favour. It is one of the very few public establishments in 
Ireland where pupils of the two religious denominations are received, 
and where no religious disputes have taken place. The pupils are 
called upon, morning and evening, to say their prayers privately. 

* And then, how much Latin and Greek does the public schoolboy know ? 
Also, does he know anything else, and what ? Is it history, or geography, or 
mathematics, or divinity ? 


567 


TEMPLEMOYLE, OR ETON? 

On Sunday", each division, Presbyterian, Roman Catholic, and 
Episcopahan, is marched to its proper place of worship. The 
pastors of each sect may visit their young flock when so inclined ; 
and the lads devote the Sabbath evening to reading the books 
pointed out to them by their clergymen. 

Would not the Agricultural Society of Ireland, of the success of 
whose peaceful labours for the national prosperity every Irish news- 
paper I read brings some new indication, do well to show some 
mark of its sympathy for this excellent institution of Templemoyle 'I 
A silver medal given by the Society to the most deserving pupil of 
the year, would^ be a great object of emulation amongst the young 
men educated at the place, and wmuld be almost a certain passport 
for the winner in seeking for a situation in after life. I do not 
know if similar seminaries exist in England. Other seminaries of 
a like nature have been tried in this country, and have failed ; but 
English country gentlemen cannot, I should think, find a better 
object of their attention than this school; and our farmers would 
surely find such establishments of great benefit to tliem : where 
their children might procure a sound literary education at a small 
charge, and at the same time be made acquainted with the latest 
improvements in their profession. I can’t help saying here, once 
more, what I have said ajprojms of tlie excellent school at Dundalk, 
and begging the Englisli middle classes to think of the subject. If 
Government will not act (upon what never can be effectual, perhaps, 
until it become a national measure), let small communities act for 
themselves, and tradesmen and the middle classes set up cheap 
PROPEIETARY SCHOOLS. Will country newspaper editors, into whose 
hands this book may fall, be kind enough to speak upon this hint, 
and extract the tables of the Templemoyle and Dundalk establish- 
ments, to show how, and with what small means, boys may be well, 
soundly, and humanely educated — not brutally, as some of us have 
been, under the bitter fagging and the shameful rod % It is no plea 
for the barbarity that use has made us accustomed to it ; and in 
seeing these institutions for humble lads, where the system taught 
is at once useful, manly, and kindly, and thinking of what I had 
undergone in my own youth, — of the frivolous monkisli trifling in 
which it was wasted, of the brutal tyranny to which it Avas sub- 
jected,- — I could not look at the lads but with a sort of envy. 
Please God, their lot Avill be shared by thousands of their equals 
and their betters before long ! 

It Avas a proud day for Dundalk, Mr. Thackeray well said, 
Avhen, at the end of one of the vacations there, fourteen English 
boys, and an Englishman with his little son in his hand, landed 
from the Liverpool packet, and, walking througli the streets of the 


568 


THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK 


town, went into the schoolhouse quite happy. That ivas a proud 
day in truth for a distant Irish town, and I can’t help saying that 
I grudge them the cause of their pride somewhat. Wliy should 
there not be schools in England as good, and as cheap, and as 
happy 1 

With this, shaking Mr. Campbell gratefully by the hand, 
and begging all English tourists to go and visit his establishment, 
we trotted off for Londonderry, leaving at about a mile’s distance 
from the town, and at the pretty lodge of Saint Columb’s, a letter, 
which was the cause of much delightful hospitality. 

Saint Columb’s Chapel, the walls of which still stand pictu- 
resquely in Sir George Hill’s park, and from which that gentleman’s 
seat takes its name, was here since the sixth century. It is but 
fair to give precedence to the mention of the old abbey, which was 
the father, as it would seem, of the town. The approach to the 
latter from three quarters, certainly, by which various avenues I 
had occasion to see it, is always noble. We had seen the spire 
of the cathedral peering over the hills for four miles on our way ; 
it stands, a stalwart and handsome building, upon an eminence, 
round which the old-fashioned stout red houses of the town cluster, 
girt in with the ramparts and walls that kept out James’s soldiers 
of old. Quays, factories, huge red warehouses, have grown round 
this famous old barrier, and now stretch along the river. A couple 
of large steamers and other craft lay within the bridge ; and, as 
we passed over that stout wooden edifice, stretching eleven hundred 
feet across the noble expanse of the Foyle, we heard along the 
quays a great thundering and clattering of iron-work in an enormous 
steam frigate which has been built in Derry, and seems to lie 
alongside a whole street of houses. The suburb, too, through 
which we passed was bustling and comfortable ; and the vie.w was 
not only pleasing from its natural beauties, but has a manly, 
thriving, honest air of prosperity, which is no bad feature, surely, 
for a landscape. 

Nor does the town itself, as one enters it, belie, as many other 
Irish towns do, its first flourishing look. It is not splendid, but 
comfortable; a brisk movement in the streets; good downright 
shops, without particularly grand titles; few beggars. Nor have 
the common people, as they address you, that eager smile, — that 
manner of compound fawning and swaggering, which an Englishman 
finds in the townspeople of the West and South. As in the North 
of England, too, when compared with other districts, the people 
are greatly more familiar, though by no means disrespectful to the 
stranger. 

On the other hand, after such a commerce as a traveller has 


EXTORTIONATE HOTEL SERVANTS 569 

with the race of waiters, postboys, porters, and the like (and it 
may be that the vast race of postboys, &c., whom I did not see 
in the North, are quite unlike those unlucky specimens with whom 
I came in contact), I was struck by their excessive gi^eediness after 
the traveller’s gratuities, and their fierce dissatisfaction if not 
sufficiently rewarded. To the gentleman who brushed my clothes 
at the comfortable hotel at Belfast, and carried my bags to the 
coach, I tendered the sum of two shillings, which seemed to me 
quite a sufiicient reward for his services ; he battled and brawled 
with me for more, and got it too ; for a street-dispute with a porter 
calls together a number of delighted bystanders, whose remarks 
and company are by no means agreeable to a solitary gentleman. 
Then, again, there was the famous case of Boots of Bally castle, 
which, being upon the subject, I may as well mention here : Boots 
of Ballycastle, that romantic little village near the Giant’s Causeway, 
had cleaned a pair of shoes for me certainly, but declined either 
to brush my clothes, or to carry down my two carpet-bags to the 
car ; leaving me to perform those offices for myself, which I did : 
and indeed they were not very difficult. But immediately I was 
seated on the car, Mr. Boots stepped forward and wrapped a 
mackintosh very considerately round me, and begged me at the 
same time to “remember him.” 

There was an old beggar-woman standing by, to whom I had a 
desire to present a penny : and having no coin of that value, I 
begged Mr. Boots, out of sixpence which I tendered to him, to 
subtract a penny, and present it to the old lady in question. Mr. 
Boots took the money, looked at me, and his countenance, not 
naturally good-humoured, assumed an expression of the most 
indignant contempt and hatred as he said, “I’m thinking I’ve no 
call to give my money away. Sixpence is my right for what 
I’ve done.” 

“ Sir,” says I, “ you must remember that you did but black 
one pair of shoes, and that you blacked them very badly too.” 

“Sixpence is my right,” says Boots ; “a gentleman would give 
me sixpence ! ” and though I represented to him that a pair of shoes 
might be blacked in a minute — that fivepence a minute was not 
usual wages in the country — that many gentlemen, half-pay officers, 
briefless barristers, unfortunate literary gentlemen, would gladly 
black twelve pairs of shoes per diem if rewarded with five shillings 
for so doing, there was no means of convincing Mr. Boots. I then 
demanded back the sixpence, which proposal, however, he declined, 
saying, after a struggle, he would give the money, but a gentleman 
would have given sixpence; and so left me with furious rage and 
contempt. 


570 


THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK 


As for the city of Derry, a carman who drove me one mile out 
to dinner at a gentleman’s house, where he himself was provided 
with a comfortable meal, was dissatisfied with eighteenpence, vowing 
that a “dinner job” was always paid half-a-crown, and not only 
asserted this, but continued to assert it for a quarter of an hour 
with the most noble though unsuccessful perseverance. A second 
car-boy, to whom I gave a shilling for a drive of two miles altogether, 
attacked me because I gave the other boy eighteenpence ; and the 
porter who brought my bags fifty yards from the coach, entertained 
me with a dialogue that lasted at least a couple of minutes, and 
said, “I should have had sixpence for carrying one of ’em.” 

For the car which carried me two miles the landlord of the inn 
made me pay the sum of five shillings. He is a godly landlord, 
has Bibles in the coffee-room, the drawing-room, and every bedroom 
in the house, with this inscription — 

“UT MIGRATURUS HABITA. 

THE traveller’s TRUE REFUGE. 

Jones’s Hotel, Londonderry.” 

This pious double or triple entendre, the reader will, no doubt, 
admire — the first simile establishing the resemblance between this 
life and an inn ; the second allegory shoving that the inn and the 
Bible are both the traveller’s refuge. 

In life we are in death — the hotel in question is about as gay 
as a family vault : a severe figure of a landlord, in seedy black, is 
occasionally seen in the dark passages or on the creaking old stairs 
of the black inn. He does not bow to you — very few landlords 
in Ireland condescend to acknowledge their guests — he only warns 
you : — a silent solemn gentleman who looks to be something between 
a clergyman and a sexton — “ ut migraturus habita ! ” — the “ migra- 
turus ” w’as a vast comfort in the clause. 

It must, however, be said, for the consolation of future travellers, 
that when at evening, in the old lonely parlour of the inn, the great 
gaunt fireplace is filled with coals, two dreary funereal candles and 
sticks glimmering upon the old-fashioned round table, the rain 
pattering fiercely without, the wind roaring and thumping in the 
streets, this worthy gentleman can produce a pint of port-wine for 
the use of his migratory guest, which causes the latter to be almost 
reconciled to the cemetery in which lie is resting himself, and he 
finds himself, to his surprise, almost cheerful. There is a mouldy- 
looking old kitchen, too, which, strange to say, sends out an excellent 
comfortable dinner, so that the sensation of fear gradually wears off. 


THE LAST OF DERRY 


571 


As in Chester, the ramparts of the town form a pleasant prome- 
nade ; and the batteries, with a few of the cannon, are preserved, 
with which the stout ’prentice boys of Derry beat off King James 
in ’88. The guns bear the names of the London Companies — 
venerable cockney titles ! It is pleasant for a Londoner to read 
them, and see how, at a pinch, the sturdy citizens can do their 
work. 

The public buildings of Derry are, I think, among the best I 
have seen in Ireland ; and tlie Lunatic Asylum, especially, is to 
be pointed out as a model of neatness and comfort. When will 
the middle classes be allowed to send their own afflicted relatives 
to public institutions of this excellent kind, where violence is never 
practised — wliere it is never to the interest of the keeper of the 
asylum to exaggerate his patient’s malady, or to retain him in 
durance, for the sake of the enormous sums which • the sufferer’s 
relatives are made to pay^ The gentry of three counties which 
contribute to the Asylum have no such resource for members of their 
own body, should any be so afflicted — the condition of entering this 
admirable asylum is, that the patient must be a pauper, and on 
this account he is supplied with every comfort and the best curative 
means, and his relations are in perfect security. Are the rich in 
any way so lucky ? — and if not, why not ? 

The rest of the occurrences at Derry belong, unhappily, to the 
domain of private life, and though very pleasant to recall, are not 
honestly to be printed. Otherwise, what popular descriptions might 
be written of the hospitalities of Saint Columb’s, of the jovialities 
of the mess of the — th Regiment, of the speeches made and the 
songs sung, and the devilled turkey at twelve o’clock, and the 
lieadache afterwards ; all which events could be described in an 
exceedingly facetious manner. But tliese amusements are to be 
met with in every other part of her Majesty’s dominions ; and the 
only point which may be mentioned here as peculiar to this part of 
Ireland, is the difference of the manner of the gentry to that in 
the South. The Northern manner is far moTQ English than that 
of the other provinces of Ireland — whether it is hetter for being 
English is a question of taste, of which an Englishman can scarcely 
be a fair judge. 


CHAPTER XXXII 

DUBLIN AT LAST 

A WEDDING-PARTY that went across Derry Bridge to the 
sound of bell and cannon, had to flounder through a thick 
coat of frozen snow, that covered the slippery planks, and 
the hills round about were whitened over by the same inclement 
material. Nor was the weather, implacable towards young lovers 
and unhappy buckskin postillions shivering in white favours, at all 
more polite towards the passengers of her Majesty’s mail that runs 
from Derry to Ballyshannon. 

Hence the aspect of the country between those two places can 
only be described at the rate of nine miles an hour, and from such 
points of observation as may be had through a coach window, 
starred with ice and mud. While horses were changed we saw a 
very dirty town, called Strabane ; and had to visit the old house of 
the O’Donnels in Donegal during a quarter of an hour’s pause that 
the coach made there — and with an umbrella overhead. The 
pursuit of the picturesque under umbrellas let us leave to more 
venturesome souls : the fine weather of the finest season known for 
many long years in Ireland was over, and I thought witli a great 
deal of yearning of Pat the waiter, at the “ Shelburne Hotel,” 
Stephen’s Green, Dublin, and the gas-lamps, and the covered cars, 
and the good dinners to which they take you. 

Farewell, then, 0 wild Donegal ! and ye stern passes through 
which the astonished traveller windeth ! Farewell, Ballyshannon, 
and thy salmon-leap, and thy bar of sand, over which the white 
head of the troubled Atlantic was peeping ! Likewise, adieu to 
Lough Erne, and its numberless green islands, and winding river- 
lake, and wavy fir-clad hills! Good-bye, moreover, neat Enniskillen, 
over the bridge and churches whereof the sun peepeth as the coach 
starteth from the inn ! See, how he shines now on Lord Belmore’s 
stately palace and park, with gleaming porticoes and brilliant grassy 
chases : now, behold he is yet higher in the heavens, as the twang- 
ing horn proclaims the approach to beggarly Cavan, where a beggarly 
breakfast awaits the hungry voyager. 

Snatching up a roll wherewith to satisfy the pangs of hunger, 


DINNERS IN DUBLIN 


573 


sharpened by the mockery of breakfast, the tourist now hastens in 
his arduous course, through Virginia, Kells, Navan, by Tara’s thread- 
bare mountain, and Skreen’s green hill ; day darkens, and a hundred 
thousand lamps twinkle in the grey horizon — see above the darkling 
trees a stumpy column rise, see on its base the name of Wellington 
(though this, because ’tis night, thou canst not see), and cry, “ It is 
the Phaynix ! — On and on, across the iron bridge, and through 
the streets (dear streets, though dirty, to the citizen’s heart how 
dear you be !), and lo, now, with a bump, the dirty coach stops at 
the seedy inn, six ragged porters battle for the bags, six wheedling 
carmen recommend tlieir cars, and (giving first the coachman 
eighteenpence) the cockney says, “ Drive, car-boy, to the ‘ Shel- 
burne.’ ” 

And so having reached Dublin, it becomes necessary to curtail 
the observations which were to be made upon that city ; which 
surely ought to have a volume to itself : the humours of Dublin at 
least require so much space. For instance, there was the dinner 
at the Kildare Street Club, or the hotel opposite,— the dinner in 

Trinity College Hall, — that at Mr. , the publisher’s, where a 

dozen of the literary men of Ireland were assembled, — and those 
(say fifty) with Harry Lorrequer himself, at his mansion of Temj)le- 
ogue. What a favourable opportunity to discourse upon the pecu- 
liarities of Irish character ! to describe men of letters, of fashion, 
and University dons ! 

Sketches of these personages may be prepared, and sent over, 
perhaps, in confidence to Mrs. Sigourney in America — (who will of 
course not print them) — but the English habit does not allow of 
these happy communications between writers and the public ; and 
the author who wishes to dine again at his friend’s cost, must needs 
have a care how he puts him in print. 

Suffice it to say, that at Kildare Street we had white neck- 
cloths, black waiters, wax-candles, and some of the best wine in 

Europe; at Mr. , the publisher’s, wax-candles, and some of 

the best wine in Europe ; at Mr. Lever’s, wax-candles, and some 
of the best wine in Europe ; at Trinity College — but there is no 
need to mention what took place at Trinity College ; for, on return- 
ing to London, and recounting the circumstances of the repast, my 

friend B , a Master of Arts of that University, solemnly declared 

the thing was impossible: — no stranger could dine at Trinity College; 
it was too great a privilege — in a word, he would not believe the 
story, nor will he to this day ; and why, therefore, tell it in vain 1 

I am sure if the fellows of Colleges in Oxford and Cambridge 
were told that the Fellows of T. C. D. only drink beer at dinner, 
they would not believe that. Such, however, was the fact : or may-be 


574 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK 

it was a dream, which was followed by another dream of about 
four-and-twenty gentlemen seated round a common-room table after 
dinner; and, by a subsequent vision of a tray of oysters in the 
apartments of a tutor of the University, some time before midnight. 
Did we swallow them or not ? — the oysters are an open question. 

Of the Catholic College of Maynooth, I must likewise speak 
briefly, for the reason that an accurate description of that establish- 
ment would be of necessity so disagreeable, that it is best to pass 
it over in a few words. An Irish union-house is a palace to it. 
Ruin so needless, filth so disgusting, such a look of lazy squalor, no 
Englishman who has not seen can conceive. Lecture-room and 
dining-hall, kitchen and students’ room, were all the same. I shall 
never forget the sight of scores of shoulders of mutton lying on the 
filthy floor in the former, or the view of a bed and dressing-table 
that I saw in the other. Let the next Maynootli grant include a 
few shillings’-worth of whitewash and a few hundredweights of 
soap ; and if to this be added a half-score of drill-sergeants, to see 
that the students appear clean at lecture, and to teach them to 
keep their heads up and to look people in the face. Parliament will 
introduce some cheap reforms into the seminary, which were never 
needed more than here. Why should the place be so shamefully 
ruinous and foully dirty ? Lime is cheap, and water plenty at the 
canal hard by. Why should a stranger, after a week’s stay in the 
country, be able to discover a priest by the scowl on his face, and 
his doubtful downcast manner'? Is it a point of discipline that 
his reverence should be made to look as ill-humoured as possible? 
And I hope these words will not be taken hostilely. It would have 
been quite as easy, and more pleasant, to say the contrary, had the 
contrary seemed to me to have been the fact ; and to have declared 
that the priests were remarkable for their expression of candour, 
and their college for its extreme neatness and cleanliness. 

Tliis complaint of neglect applies to other public institutions 
besides Maynooth. The Mansion-house, when I saw it, was a 
very dingy abode for the Right Honourable Lord Mayor, and that 
Lord Mayor Mr. O’Connell. I saw him in full council, in a bril- 
liant robe of crimson velvet, ornamented with white satin bows 
and sable collar, in an enormous cocked-hat, like a slice of an 
eclipsed moon. 

The Aldermen and Common Council, in a black oak parlour 
and at a dingy green table, were assembled around him, and a 
debate of thrilling interest to the town ensued ; it related, I think, 
to water-pipes. The great man did not speak publicly, but was 
occupied chiefly at the end of the table, giving audiences to at least 
a score of clients and petitioners. 


THE LORD MAYOR 


575 


The next day I saw him in the famous Corn Exchange. Tlie 
building without has a substantial look, but the hall within is rude, 
dirty, and ill kept. Hundreds of persons were assembled in the 
black steaming place ; no inconsiderable share of frieze-coats were 
among them ; and many small Repealers, who could but lately have 
assumed their breeches, ragged as they were. These kept up a 
great chorus of shouting, and “hear, hear!” at every pause in 
the great Repealer’s addi*ess. Mr. O’Connell was reading a report 
from his Repeal- wardens ; which proved that when Repeal took place, 
commerce and prosperity would instantly flow into the country ; 
its innumerable harbours would be filled with countless ships, its 
immense water-power would be directed to the turning of myriads 
of mills ; its vast energies and resources brought into full action. 
At the end of the report three cheers were given for Repeal, and 
in the midst of a great shouting Mr. O’Connell leaves the room. 

“ Mr. Quiglan, Mr. Quiglan ! ” roars an active aide-de-camp to 
the doorkeeper, “ a covered kyar for tlie Lard Mayre.” The covered 
car came ; I saw his Lordship get into it. Next day he was Lord 
Mayor no longer ; but Alderman O’Connell in his state-coach, witli 
the handsome greys whose manes were tied up with green ribbon, 
following the new Lord Mayor to the right honourable inauguration. 
Javelin-men, city-marshals (looking like military undertakers), private 
carriages, glass coaches, cars, covered and uncovered,jCind thousands 
of yelling ragamufiins, formed the civic procession 'of that faded, 
worn-out, insolvent old Dublin Corporation. 

The walls of this city had been placarded with huges notices 
to the public, that O’Connell’s rent-day was at hand ; and I went 
round to all the chapels in town on that Sunday (not a little to the 
scandal of some Protestant friends), to see the popular behaviour. 
Every door was barred, of course, with plate-holders ; and lieaps of 
pence at the humble entrances, and bank-notes at the front gates, 
told the willingness of the people to reward their champion. The 
car-boy who drove me had paid liis little tribute of fourpence at 
morning mass ; the waiter who brought my breakfast had added to 
the national subscription with his humble shilling ; and the Catholic 
gentleman with whom I dined, and between whom and Mr. O’Connell 
there is no great love lost, pays his annual donation, out of gratitude 
for old services, and to the man who won Catholic Emancipation 
for Ireland. The piety of the people at the chapels is a sight, too, 
always well worthy to behold. Nor indeed is this religious fervour 
less in the Protestant places of worship : the warmth and attention 
of the congregation, the enthusiasm with which hymns are sung 
and responses uttered, contrast curiously with the cool formality 
of worshippers at home. 


576 


THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK 


The service at Saint Patrick’s is finely sung ; and the shameless 
English custom of retreating after the anthem, is properly prevented 
by locking the gates, and having the music after the sermon. The 
interior of the cathedral itself, however, to an Englishman who has 
seen the neat and beautiful edifices of his own country, will be any- 
thing but an object of admiration. The greater part of the huge 
old building is suffered to remain in gaunt decay, and with its stalls 
of sham Gothic, and the tawdry old rags and gimcracks of the 
“ most illustrious order of Saint Patrick ” (whose pasteboard helmets, 
and calico banners, and lath swords, well characterise the humbug 
of chivalry which they are made to represent), looks like a theatre 
behind the scenes. “ Paddy’s Opera,” however, is a noble perform- 
ance ; and the Englishman may here listen to a half-hour sermon, 
and in the anthem to a bass singer whose voice is one of the finest 
ever heard. 

The Drama does not flourish much more in Dublin than in any 
other part of the country. Operatic stars make their appearance 
occasionally, and managers lose money. I was at a fine concert, at 
which Lablache and others performed, where there were not a 
hundred people in the pit of the pretty theatre, and where the only 
encore given was to a young woman in ringlets and yellow satin, 
who stepped forward and sang “ Coming through the rye,” or some 
other scientific composition, in an exceedingly small voice. On the 
nights when the regular drama was enacted, the audience was still 
smaller. The theatre of Fishamble Street was given up to the 
performances of the Rev. Mr. Gregg and his Protestant company, 
whose soirees I did not attend ; and, at the Abbey Street Theatre, 
whither I went in order to see, if possible, some specimens of the 
national humour, I found a company of English people ranting 
througli a melodrama, the tragedy whereof was the only laughable 
thing to be witnessed. 

Humbler popular recreations may be seen by the curious. One 
night I paid twopence to see a puppet-show — such an entertain- 
ment as may have been popular a hundred and thirty years ago, 
and is described in the Spectator. But the company here assemblecl 
were not, it scarcely need be said, of the genteel sort. There were 
a score of boys, liowever, and a dozen of labouring men, who were 
quite happy and contented with the piece performed, and loudly 
applauded. Then in passing homewards of a night, you hear, at 
the humble public-houses, the sound of many a fiddle, and the stamp 
of feet dancing the good old jig, which is still maintaining a struggle 
with teetotalism, and, though vanquished now, may rally some day 
and overcome the enemy. At Kingstown, especially, the old “ fire- 
worshippers ” yet seem to muster pretty strongly ; loud is the music 


IRISH GENTILITY 577 

to be heard in the taverns there, and the cries of encouragement to 
the dancers. 

Of the numberless amusements that take place in the Phaynix^ 
it is not very necessary to speak. Here you may behold garrison 
races, and reviews ; lord-lieutenants in brown greatcoats ; aides-de- 
camp scampering about like mad in blue ; fat colonels roaring 
“charge” to immense heavy dragoons ; dark riflemen lining woods 
and firing ; galloping cannoneers banging and l)lazing right and left. 
Here comes his Excellency the Commander-in-Chief, with his huge 
feathers, and white hair, and hooked nose ; and yonder sits his 
Excellency the Ambassador from the republic of Topinambo in a 
glass coach, smoking a cigar. The honest Dublinites make a great 
deal of such small dignitaries as his Excellency of the glass coach ; 
you hear everybody talking of him, and asking which is he ; and 
when presently one of Sir Robert Peel’s sons makes his appearance 
on the course, the public rush delighted to look at him. 

They love great folks, those honest Emerald Islanders, more 
intensely than any people I ever heard of, except the Americans. 
They still cherish the memory of the sacred George IV. They 
chronicle genteel small beer with never-failing assiduity. They go 
in long trains to a sham Court — simpering in tights and bags, with 
swords between their legs. 0 heaven and earth, what joy ! Why 
are the Irish noblemen absentees 'I If their lordships like respect, 
where would they get it so well as in tlieir own country ? 

The Irish noblemen are very likely going through the same 
delightful routine of duty before their real sovereign — in 9^eal tights 
and bagwigs, as it were, performing their graceful and lofty duties, 
and celebrating the august service of the throne. These, of course, 
the truly loyal heart can only respect : and I think a drawing-room 
at St. James’s the grandest spectacle that ever feasted the eye or 
exercised the intellect. The crown, surrounded by its knights and 
nobles, its priests, its sages, and their respective ladies ; illustrious 
foreigners, men learned in the law, heroes of land and sea, beef- 
eaters, gold-sticks, gentlemen-at-arms rallying round the throne and 
defending it with those swords which never knew defeat (and would 
surely, if tried, secure victory) : these are sights and characters 
which every man must look upon with a thrill of respectful awe, 
and count amongst the glories of his country. What lady that sees 
this will not confess that she reads every one of the drawing-room 
costumes, from Majesty down to Miss Ann Maria Smith ; and all 
the names of the presentations, from Prince Baccabocksky (by the 
Russian Ambassador) to Ensign Stubbs on his appointment? 

We are bound to read these accounts. It is our pride, our duty 
as Britons. But though one may honour the respect of the aristo- 
5 2 o 


578 


THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK 


cracy of the land for tlie sovereign, yet there is no reason why 
those who are not of the aristocracy should be aping their betters ; 
and the Dublin Castle business has, I cannot but think, a very 
liigh-life-below-stairs look. There is no aristocracy in Dublin. 
Its magnates are tradesmen — Sir Fiat Haustus, Sir Blacker Dosy, 
Mr. Serjeant Bluebag, or Mr. Counsellor O’Fee. Brass-plates are 
their titles of honour, and they live by their boluses or their briefs. 
What call liave these worthy people to be dangling and grinning at 
lord-lieutenants’ levies, and playing sham aristocracy before a sham 
sovereign 1 Oh that old humbug of a Castle ! It is the greatest 
sham of all the shams in Ireland. 

Although the season may be said to have begun, for the Courts 
are opened, and the noblesse de la robe have assembled, I do not 
think the genteel quarters of the town look much more cheerful. 
They still, for the most part, wear their faded appearance and lean 
half-pay look. There is the beggar still dawdling here and there. 
Sounds of carriages or footmen do not deaden the clink of the burly 
policeman’s boot-heels. You may see, possibly, a smutty-faced 
nursemaid leading out her little charges to walk ; or the observer 
may catch a glimpse of Mi(;k the footman lolling at the door, and 
grinning as he talks to some dubious tradesman. Mick and John 
are very different characters externally and inwardly ; — profound 
essays (involving the histories of the two countries for a thousand 
years) might be written regarding Mick and John, and the moral 
and political inffuences which have developed the flunkeys of the 
two nations. The friend, too, with wdiom Mick talks at the door 
is a puzzle to a Londoner. I have hardly ever entered a Dublin 
house without meeting with some such character on my way in or 
out. He looks too shabby for a dun, and not exactly ragged enough 
for a beggar — a doubtful, lazy, dirty family vassal — a guerilla foot- 
man. I think it is he who makes a great noise, and whispering, 
and clattering, handing in the dishes to Mick from outside of the 
dining-room door. When an Irishman comes to London he brings 
Erin with him ; and ten to one you will find one of these queer 
retainers about his place. 

London one can only take leave of by degrees : the great town 
melts away into suburbs, which soften, as it were, the parting 
between the cockney and his darling birthplace. But you pass 
from some of the stately fine Dublin streets straight into the 
country. After No. 46 Eccles Street, for instance, potatoes begin 
at once. You are on a wide green plain, diversified by occasional 
cabbage-plots, by drying-grounds white with chemises, in the midst 
of which the chartered wind is revelling ; and though in the map 
some fanciful engineer has laid down streets and squares, they exist 


STONEYBATTER 


579 

but on paper; nor, indeed, can there be any need of them at 
present, in a quarter where houses are not wanted so much as people 
to dwell in the same. 

If the genteel portions of the town look to the full as melancholy 
as they did, the downright poverty ceases, I fear, to make so strong 
an impression as it made four months ago. Going over the same 
ground again, places appear to have quite a different aspect ; and, 
with their strangeness, poverty and misery have lost much of their 
terror. The people, though dirtier and more ragged, seem certainly 
happier than those in London. 

Near to the King’s Court, for instance (a noble building, as are 
almost all the public edifices of the city), is a straggling green suburb, 
containing numberless little shabby, patched, broken-windowed huts, 
with rickety gardens dotted with rags that have been washed, and 
children that have not ; and thronged with all sorts of ragged inhabi- 
tants. Near to the suburb, in tlie town, is a dingy old mysterious 
district, called Stoneybatter, where some houses have been allowed 
to reach an old age, extraordinary in this country of premature ruin, 
and look as if they had been built some six score years since. In 
these and the neighbouring tenements, not so old, but equally ruinous 
and mouldy, there is a sort of vermin swarm of humanity : dirty 
faces at all the dirty windows ; children on all the broken steps ; 
smutty slipshod women clacking and bustling about, and old men 
dawdling. Well, only paint and prop the tumbling gates and huts 
in the suburb, and fancy the Stoneybatterites clean, and you would 
have rather a gay and agreeable picture of human life — of workpeople 
and their families reposing after their labours. They are all happy, 
and sober, and kind-hearted, — they seem kind, and play with the 
children — the young women having a gay good-natured joke for the 
passer-by ; the old seemingly contented, and buzzing to one another. 
It is only the costume, as it were, that has frightened the stranger, 
and made him fancy that people so ragged must be unhappy. Ob- 
servation grows used to the rags as much as the people do, and my 
impression of the walk through this district, on a sunsliiny clear 
autumn evening, is that of a fete. I am almost ashamed it should 
be so. 

Near to Stoneybatter lies a group of huge gloomy edifices — an 
hospital, a penitentiary, a madhouse, and a poorhouse. I visited 
the latter of these, the North Dublin Union-house, an enormous 
establishment, which accommodates two thousand beggars. Like 
all the public institutions of the country, it seems to be well con- 
ducted, and is a vast, orderly, and cleanly place, wherein the 
prisoners are better clothed, better fed, and better housed than they 
can hope to be when at liberty. We were taken into all the wards 


580 


THE IRISH SKETOH BOOK 


in due order ; tlie schools and nursery for the children ; the dining- 
rooms, day-rooms, &c., of the men and women. Each division is so 
accommodated, as also with a large court or ground to walk and 
exercise in. 

Among the men, there are very few able-bodied ; the most of 
them, the keeper said, having gone out for the harvest-time, or as 
soon as the potatoes came in. If they go out, they cannot return 
before the expiration of a month : the guardians have been obliged 
to establish this prohibition, lest the ])ersons requiring relief should 
go in and out too frequently. The old men were assembled in con- 
siderable numbers in a long day-room that is comfortable and warm. 
Some of them were picking oakum by way of employment, but most 
of them were past work ; all such inmates of the house as are able- 
bodied being occupied upon the premises. Their hall was airy and 
as clean as brush and water could make it : the men equally clean, 
and their grey jackets and Scotch caps stout and warm. Thence 
we were led, with a sort of satisfaction, by the guardian, to the 
kitchen — a large room, at the end of which might be seen certain 
coppers, emitting, it must be owned, a very faint inhospitable smell. 
It was Friday, and rice-milk is the food on that day, each man being 
served with a pint-canful, of which cans a great number stood 
smoking upon stretchers — the platters were laid, each with its 
portion of salt, in the large clean dining-room hard by. “ Look at 
that rice,” said the keeper, taking up a bit ; “ try it, sir, it’s 
delicious.” I’m sure I hope it is. 

The old women’s room was crowded with, I should think, at 
least four hundred old ladies — neat and nice, in white clothes and 
caps — sitting demurely on benches, doing nothing for the most part ; 
but some employed, like the old men, in fiddling with the oakum. 
“ There’s tobacco here,” says the guardian, in a loud voice ; “ who’s 
smoking tobacco T’ “Fait, and I wish dere ivas some tabaccy 
here,” says one old lady, “ and my service to you, Mr. Leary, and I 
hope one of the gentlemen has a snuft-box, and a pinch for a poor 
old woman.” But we had no boxes ; and if any person who reads 
this visit, goes to a poorhouse or lunatic asylum, let him carry a 
box, if for that day only — a pinch is like Dives’s drop of water to 
those poor limboed souls. Some of the poor old creatures began to 
stand up as we came in — I can’t say how painful such an honour 
seemed to me. 

There was a separate room for the able-bodied females ; and 
the place and courts were full of stout, red-cheeked, bouncing 
women. If the old ladies looked res})ectable, I cannot say the young 
ones were particularly good-looking; there were some Hogarthian 
faces amongst them — sly, leering, and hideous. I fancied I could 


NORTH DUBLIN UNION 581 

see only too well what these "iris had been. Is it charitable or not 
to hope that such bad faces could only belong to bad women 1 

“ Here, sir, is the nursery,” said the guide, flinging open the 
door of a long room. There may have been eighty babies in it, 
with as many nurses and motliers. Close to the door sat one with 
as beautiful a face as I almost ever saw ; she had at her breast a 
very sickly and puny child, and looked up, as we entered, with a 
pair of angelical eyes, and a face that Mr. Eastlake could paint — a 
face that had been angelical that is ; for there was the snow still, 
as it were, but with the footmark on it. I asked lier how old she 
was — ^she did not know. She could not have been more than 
fifteen years, the poor child. She said she had been a servant — 
and there was no need of asking anything more about her story. I 
saw her grinning at one of her comrades as we went out of the 
room ; her face did not look angelical then. Ah, young master 
or old, young or old villain, who did this! — have you not enough 
wickedness of your own to answer for, that you must take another’s 
sins upon your shoulders ; and be this wretched child’s sponsor in 
crime? . . . 

But this chapter must be made as short as possible : and so 
I will not say liow much prouder Mr. Leary, the keeper, was of 
his fat pigs than of his paupers — how he pointed us out tlie burial- 
ground of the family of the poor — their coffins were quite visible 
through the niggardly mould ; and the children might peep at their 
fathers over the burial-ground-playground wall — nor how we went 
to see the Linen Hall of Dublin — that huge, useless, lonely, decayed 
place, in the vast windy solitudes of which stands the simpering 
statue of George IV., pointing to some bales of shirting, over which 
he is supposed to extend his august protection. 

The cheers of the rabble hailing the new Lord Mayor were the 
last sounds that I heard in Dublin : and I quitted the kind friends 
I had made there with the sincerest regret. As for forming “an 
opinion of Ireland,” such as is occasionally asked from a traveller 
on his return — that is as difficult an opinion to form as to express ; 
and the puzzle which has perplexed the gravest and wisest, may 
be confessed by a humble writer of light literature, whose aim it 
only was to look at the manners and the scenery of the country, 
and who does not venture to meddle with questions of more serious 
import. 

To have “ an opinion about Ireland,” one must begin by getting 
at the truth : and where is it to be had in the country ? Or rather, 
there are two truths, the Catholic truth and the Protestant truth. 
The two parties do not see things with the same eyes. I recollect, 
for instance, a Catholic gentleman telling me that the Primate had 


582 


THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK 


forty-three thousand Jive hundred a year ; a Protestant clergyman 
gave me, chapter and verse, the history of a shameful perjury and 
malversation of money on the part of a Catholic priest ; nor was 
one tale more true than the other. But belief is made a party 
business ; and the receiving of the archbishop’s income would 
probably not convince the Catholic, any more than the clearest 
evidence to the contrary altered the Protestant’s opinion. Ask 
about aTi estate : you may be sure almost that people will make 
misstatements, or volunteer them if not asked. Ask a cottager 
about his rent, or his landlord : you cannot trust him. I shall 
never forget the glee with which a gentleman in Munster told me 
liow lie had sent off MM. Tocqueville and Beaumont “ with such 
a set of stories.” Inglis was seized, as I am told, and mystified in 
the same way. In the midst of all these truths, attested with “ I 
give ye my sacred honour and word,” which is the stranger to select? 
And how are we to trust philosophers who make theories upon 
such data? 

Meanwhile it is satisfactory to know, upon testimony so general 
as to be equivalent almost to fact, that, wretched as it is, the 
country is steadily advancing, nor nearly so wretched now as it was 
a score of years since ; and let us hope that the middle class, which 
this increase of prosperity must generate (and of which our laws 
have hitherto forbidden the existence in Ireland, making there a 
population of Protestant aristocracy and Catholic peasantry), will 
exercise the greatest and most beneficial influence over the country. 
Too independent to be bullied by priest or squire — having their 
interest in ({uiet, and alike indisposed to servility or to rebellion ; 
may not as much be hoped from the gradual formation of such a 
class, as from any legislative meddling? It is the want of the 
middle class that has rendered the squire so arrogant, and the 
clerical or political demagogue so powerful ; and I think Mr. 
O’Connell himself would say that the existence of such a body 
would do more for the steady acquirement of orderly freedom, than 
the occasional outbreak of any crowd, influenced by any eloquence 
from altar or tribune. 


NOTES OF A JOURNEY 


^ FROM 

CORNHILL TO GRAND CAIRO 

BY WAY OF 

LISBON, ATHENS, CONSTANTINOPLE, AND JEUSALEM 


PERFORMED IN THE STEAMERS OF THE PENINSULAR 


AND ORIENTAL COMPANY 



TO 


CAPTAIN SAMUEL LEWIS, 

OF THE 

PENINSULAR AND ORIENTAL STEAM NAVIGATION COMPANY’S 

SERVICE 

M y dear lewis, — A fter a voyage, during which the captain 
of the ship has displayed uncommon courage, seamanship) 
affability, or other good qualities, grateful passengers often 
present him with a token of their esteem, in tlie shape of teapots, 
tankards, trays, &c., of precious metal. Among authors, however, 
bullion is a much rarer commodity than paper, whereof I beg you 
to accept a little in the shape of this small volume. It contains 
a few notes of a voyage which your skill and kindness rendered 
doubly pleasant ; and of which I don’t think there is any recollec- 
tion more agreeable than that it was the occasion of making your 
friendship. 

If the noble Company in whose service you command (and 
whose fleet alone makes them a third-rate maritime power in 
Europe) should appoint a few admirals in their navy, I hope to 
hear that your flag is hoisted on board one of the grandest of their 
steamers. But, I trust, even there you will not forget the Iberia, 
and the delightful Mediterranean cruise we had in her in tlie 
Autumn of 1844. 

Most faithfully yours. 

My dear Lewis, 

W.’ M. THACKERAY. 


London : December 24, 1845. 




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PREFACE 


N the 20th of August 1844, the writer of this little book 



went to dine at the Club, quite unconscious of the 


wonderlul events which Fate had in store for him. 

Mr. William was there, giving a farewell dinner to his friend 
Mr. James (now Sir James). These two asked Mr. Titmarsh to 
join company with them, and tlie conversation naturally fell upon 
the tour Mr. James was about to take. The Peninsular and 
Oriental Company had arranged an excursion in the Mediterranean, 
by which, in the space of a couple of montlis, as many men and 
cities were to be seen as Ulysses surveyed and noted in ten years. 
Malta, Atliens, Smyrna, Constantinople, Jerusalem, Cairo were to 
be visited, and everybody was to be back in London by Lord 
Mayor’s Day. 

The idea of beholding these tamous i)]aces inflamed Mr. Tit- 
marsh’s mind ; and the charms of such a journey were eloquently 
impressed upon him by Mr. James. “ Come,” said that kind aiul 
hospitable gentleman, “ and make one of my family party ; in all 
your life you will never probably have a chance again to see so 
much in so short a time. Consider — it is as easy as a- journey to 
Paris or to Baden.” Mr. Titmarsh considered all these things ; but 
also the difficulties of the situation : he had but six-and-thirty liouis 
to get ready for so portentous a journey — he had engagements at 
home — finally, could he aflbrd if? In spite of these objections, 
however, with every glass of claret the enthusiasm somehow rose, 
and the difficulties vanished. 

But when Mr. James, to crown all, said he had no doubt that 
his friends, the Directors of the Peninsular and Oriental Company, 
would make Mr. Titmarsh the present of a berth for the voyage, 
all objections ceased on his part : to break his outstanding engage- 
ments — to write letters to his amazed family, stating that they 
were not to expect him at dinner on Saturday fortnight, as he 
would be at Jerusalem on that day — to purchase eighteen shirts 
and lay in a sea-stock of Russia , ducks, — was the work of tour-and- 


588 JOURNEY FROM CORNHILL TO CAIRO 


twenty liours ; and on the 22nd of August, the Lady Mary Wood 
was sailing from Southampton with the “subject of the present 
memoir,” quite astonished to find himself one of the passengers 
on board. 

These important statements are made partly to convince some 
incredulous friends — who insist still that the writer never went 
abroad at all, and wrote the following pages, out of pure fancy, in 
retirement at Putney ; but mainly, to give him an opportunity of 
thanking the Directors of the Company in question for a delightful 
excursion. 

It was one so easy, so charming, and I think profitable — it 
leaves such a store of pleasant recollections for after days — and 
creates so many new sources of interest (a newspaper letter from 
Beyrout, or Malta, or Algiers, has twice the interest now that it 
had formerly), — that I can’t but recommend all persons who have 
time and means to make a similar journey — vacation idlers to 
extend their travels and pursue it : above all, young well-educated 
men entering life, to take this course, we will say, after that at 
college ; and, having tlieir book-learning fresh in their minds, see 
the living people and tlieir cities, and tlie actual aspect of Nature, 
.along the famous shores of the Mediterranean. 


A JOURNEY 


FROM 


CORNHILL TO CAIRO 


CHAPTER I 


VIGO 



HE sun brought all the sick people out of their berths this 


morning, and the indescribable moans and noises which had 


^ been issuing from behind the fine painted doors on each side 
of the cabin happily ceased. Long before sunrise, I had the good 
fortune to discover that it was no longer necessary to maintain the 
horizontal posture, and, the very instant this truth was apparent, 
came on deck, at two o’clock in the morning, to see a noble full 
moon sinking westward, and millions of the most brilliant stars 
shining overhead. The night was so serenely pure, that you saw 
them in magnificent airy perspective ; the blue sky around and over 
them, and other more distant orbs sparkling above, till they glittered 
away faintly into the immeasurable distance. The ship went 
rolling over a heavy, sweltering, calm sea. The breeze was a warm 
and soft one ; quite different to the rigid air we had left behind us, 
two days since, off the Isle of Wight. The bell kept tolling its 
half-hours, and the mate explained the mystery of watch and dog- 


watch 


The sight of that noble scene cured all the woes and discom- 
fitures of sea-sickness at once, and if there were any need to com- 
municate such secrets to the public, one might tell of much more 
good that the pleasant morning-watch effected ; but there are a set 
of emotions about which a man had best be shy of talking lightly, — 
and the feelings excited by contemplating this vast, magnificent, 
harmonious Nature are among these. The view of it inspires a 
delight and ecstasy which is not only hard to describe, but which 


590 JOURNEY FROM CORNHILL TO CAIRO 

has something secret in it that a man shonhl not utter loudly. 
Hope, memory, humility, tender yearnings towards dear friends, 
and inexpressible love and reverence towards the Power which 
’created the infinite universe blazing above eternally, and the vast 
ocean shining and rolling around — fill the heart with a solemn 
humble happiness, tliat a person dwelling in a city has rarely 
occasion to enjoy. They are coming away from London parties at 
this time : the dear little eyes are closed in sleep under mother’s 
wing. How far off city cares and pleasures appear to be ! how 
small and mean they seem, dwindling out of sight before this 
magnificent brightness of Nature ! But the best thoughts only 
grow and strengtlien under it. Heaven shines above, and the 
humble spirit looks up reverently towards that boundless aspect of 
wisdom and beauty. You are at home, and with all at rest there, 
however far away they may be ; and through the distance the heart 
broods over them, bright and wakeful like yonder peaceful stars 
overhead. 

The day was as fine and calm as the night; at seven bells, 
suddenly a bell began to toll very much like that of a country 
church, and on going on deck we found an awning raised, a desk 
with a flag flung over it close to • the compass, and the ship’s 
company and passengers assembled there to hear the Captain read 
the Service in a manly respectful voice. This, too, was a novel and 
touching sight to me. Peaked ridges of purple mountains rose to 
the left of the ship, — Finisterre and the coast of Galicia. The sky 
above was cloudless and shining ; the vast dark ocean smiled 
peacefully round about, and the ship went rolling over it, as the 
people within were praising the Maker of all. 

In lionour of the day, it was announced that the passengers 
would be regaled with champagne at dinner ; and accordingly that 
exhilarating liquor was served out in decent profusion, the company 
drinking the Captain’s health with the customary orations of compli- 
ment and acknowledgment. This feast Avas scarcely ended, when 
we found ourselves rounding the headland into Vigo Bay, passing a 
grim and tall island of rocky mountains which lies in the centre of 
the bay. 

Wliether it is that the sight of land is always welcome to weary 
mariners, after the perils and annoyances of a voyage of three days, 
or whether the place is in itself extraordinarily beautiful, need not 
be argued ; but I have seldom seen anything more charming than 
the amphitheatre of noble hills into Avhich the ship now came — all 
the features of the landscape being lighted up with a wonderful 
clearness of air, which rarely adorns a view in our country. The 


VIGO 


591 

sun had not yet set, but over the town and lofty rocky castle of 
Vigo a great ghost of a moon was faintly visible, which blazed out 
brighter and brighter as the superior luminary retired behind the 
purple mountains of the headland to rest. Before the general back- 
ground of waving heights which encompassed the bay, rose a second 
semicircle of undulating hills, as cheerful and green as the mountains 
behind them were grey and solemn. Farms and gardens, convent 
towers, white villages and churches, and buildings that no doubt 
were hermitages once, upon the sharp peaks of the hills, shone 
brightly in the sun. The sight was delightfully cheerful, animated, 
and pleasing. 

Presently the Captain roared out the magic words, “ Stop her ! ” 
and the obedient vessel came to a standstill, at some three hundred 
yards from the little town, with its white houses clambering up a 
rock, defended by the superior mountain whereon the castle stands. 
Numbers of people, arrayed in various brilliant colours of red, were 
standing on the sand close by the tumbling, shining, purple waves : 
and there we beheld, for the first time, the Royal red and yellow 
standard of SY)ain floating on its own ground, under the guardian- 
ship of a light blue sentinel, whose musket glittered in the sun. 
Numerous boats were seen, incontinently, to put off from the little 
shore. 

And now our attention was withdrawn from the land to a sight 
of great splendour on board. This was Lieutenant Bundy, the 
guardian of her Majesty’s mails, who issued from his cabin in his 
long swallow-tailed coat with anchor buttons ; his sabre clattering 
between his legs ; a magnificent shirt-collar, of several inches in 
height, rising round his good-humoured sallow face ; and above it 
a cocked hat, that shone so, I thought it was made of polished tin 
(it may have been that or oilskin), handsomely laced with black 
worsted, and ornamented with a shining gold cord. A little squat 
boat, rowed by three ragged gallegos, came bouncing up to the ship. 
Into this Mr. Bundy and her Majesty’s Royal Mail embarked with 
much majesty ; and in the twinkling of an eye, the Royal standard 
of England, about the size of a pocket-handkerchief, — and at the 
bows of the boat, the man-of-war’s pennant, being a strip of bunting 
considerably under the value of a farthing, — streamed out. 

“ They know that flag, sir,” said the good-natured old tar, quite 
solemnly, in the evening afterwards : “ they respect it, sir.” The 
authority of her Majesty’s lieutenant on board the steamer is stated 
to be so tremendous, that he may order it to stop, to move, to go 
larboard, starboard, or what you will ; and the captain dare only 
disobey him suo perimdo. 

It was agreed that a party of us should land for half-an-hour, 


592 JOURNEY FROM CORNHILL TO CAIRO 

and taste leal Spanish chocolate on Spanish ground. We followed 
Lieutenant Bundy, but humbly in the i)rovidor’s boat; that officer 
going on shore to purchase fresh eggs, milk for tea (in ])lace of the 
slimy substitute of whipped yolk of egg which we had been using' 
for our morning and evening meals), and, if possible, oysters, for 
which it is said the rocks of Vigo are famous. 

It was low tide, and the boat could not get up to the dry shore. 
Hence it was necessary to take advantage of the offers of sundry 
gallegos, who rushed barelegged into the water, to land on their 
shoulders. The approved method seems to be, to sit upon one 
shoulder only, holding on by the porter’s Avhiskers ; and though 
some of our party were of the tallest and fattest men whereof our 
race is comi)osed, and their living sedans exceedingly meagre and 
small, yet all were landed without accident upon the juicy sand, 
and forthwith surrounded by a host of mendicants, screaming, “ I 
say, sir ! penny, sir ! I say, Etiglish ! tarn your ays ! penny ! ” in 
all voices, from extreme youth to the most lousy and venerable old 
age. When it is said that these beggars were as ragged as those of 
Ireland, and still more voluble, the Irish traveller will be able to 
form an opinion of their capabilities. 

Through this crowd we passed up some steep rocky steps, 
through a little low gate, where, in a little guard-house and barrack, 
a few dirty little sentinels were keeping a dirty little guard ; and 
by low-roofed whitewashed houses, with balconies, and women in 
them, — the very same women, with the very same head-clothes, 
and yellow fans and eyes, at once sly and solemn, which Murillo 
l)ainted, — by a neat church into which we took a peep, and, finally, 
into the Plaza del Constitucion, or grand idace of the town, which 
may be about as big as that j)leasing scpiare. Pump Court, Temjde. 
We were taken to an inn, of which I forget the name, and were 
shown from one chamber and storey to another, till we arrived at 
that apartment where the real Spanish chocolate was finally to be 
served out. All these rooms were as clean as scrubbing and white- 
wash could make them; with simple French prints (with Spanish 
titles) on the walls ; a few rickety half-finished articles of furniture ; 
and, finally, an air of extremely respectable poverty. A jolly, black- 
eyed, yellow-shawled Dulcinea conducted us through the apartment, 
and provided us with the desired refreshment. 

Sounds of clarions drew our eyes to the Place of the Constitution ; 
and, indeed, I had forgotten to say, that that majestic square was 
filled with military, with exceedingly small firelocks, the men 
ludicrously young and diminutive for the most part, in a uniform 
at once cheap and tawdry, — like those supplied to the warriors at 
Astley’s, or from still humbler theatrical wardrobes : indeed, the 


AFLOAT 


59s 


whole scene was just like that of a little theatre ; the houses 
curiously small, with arcades and balconies, out of which looked 
women apparently a great deal too big for the chambers they 
inhabited ; the warriors were in ginghams, cottons, and tinsel ; the 
officers had huge epaulets of sham silver lace drooping over their 
bosoms, and looked as if they were attired at a very small expense. 
Only the general — the captain -general (Pooch, tliey told us, was 
his name : I know not how ’tis written in Spanish) — was well got 
uj), with a smart hat, a real feather, huge stars glittering on his 
portly chest, and tights and boots of the first order. Presently, 
after a good deal of trumpeting, the little men marched off the 
place. Pooch and his staff coming into the very inn ,in which we 
were awaiting our chocolate. 

Then we had an opportunity of seeing some of the civilians of 
the town. Three or four ladies i)assed, with fan and mantle ; to 
tliem came three or four dandies, dressed smai tly in the Frencli 
fashion, with strong Jewish physiognomies. There was one, a 
solemn lean fellow in black, with his collars extremely turned over, 
and holding before him a long ivory-tipped ebony cane, who tripped 
along the little place with a solemn smirk, which gave one an 
indescribable feeling of the truth of “ Gil Bias,” and of those 
delightful bachelors and licentiates who have appeared to us all in 
our dreams. 

In fact we were but half-an-hour in this little queer Spanish 
town ; and it appeared like a dream, too, or a little show got up to 
amuse us. Boom ! the gun fired at the end of the funny little 
entertainment. The women and the balconies, the beggars and the 
walking Murillos, Pooch and the little soldiers in tinsel, disappeared, 
and were shut up in their box again. Once more we were carried 
on the beggars’ shoulders out off the sliore, and we found ourselves 
again in the great stalwart roast-beef world ; the stout British 
steamer bearing out of the bay, whose purple waters had grown 
more purple. The sun had set by this time, and the moon above 
was twice as big and bright as our degenerate moons are. 

The provider had already returned with his fresh stores, and 
Bundy’s tin hat was popped into its case, and he walking the deck 
of the packet denuded of tails. As we went out of the bay, occurred 
a little incident with which the great incidents of tlie day may be 
said to wind up. We saw before us a little vessel, tumbling and 
plunging about in the dark waters of the bay, with a bright light 
beaming from the mast. It made for us at about a couple of miles 
from the town, and came close up, flouncing and bobbing in the very 
jaws of the paddle, which looked as if it would have seized and 


594 JOURNEY FROM CORNHILL TO CAIRO 


twirled round that little boat and its light, and destroyed them for 
ever and ever. All the passengers, of course, came crowding to the 
ship’s side to look at the bold little boat. 

“I say!” howled a man; “I say! — a word! — I say! 
Pasagero ! Pasagero ! Pasage-e-ero ! ” We were two hundred yards 
ahead by this time. 

“ Go on,” says the captain. 

“ You may stop if you like,” says Lieutenant Bundy, exerting 
his tremendous responsibility. It is evident that the lieutenant has 
a soft heart, and felt for the poor devil in the boat who was howling 
so piteously “ Pasagero ! ” 

But the captain was resolute. His duty was not to take the 
man up. He was evidently an irregular customer — some one trying 
to escape, possibly. 

The lieutenant turned away, but did not make any further hints. 
The captain was right ; but we all felt somehow disappointed, and 
looked back wistfully at the little boat, jumping up and down far 
astern now ; the poor little light shining in vain, and the poor 
wretch within screaming out in the most heart-rending accents a 
last faint desperate “ I say ! Pasagero-o ! ” 

We all went dowm to tea rather melancholy; but the new milk, 
in the place of that abominable whipped egg, revived us again ; and 
so ended the great events on board the Lady Mary Wood steamer, 
on the 25th August 1844. 


CHAPTER II 


LISBON— CADIZ 

A GREAT misfortune which befalls a man who has but a single 
clay to stay in a town, is that fatal duty which superstition 
entails upon him of visiting the chief lions of the city in 
which he may happen to be. You must go through the ceremony, 
however much you may sigh to avoid it ; and however much you 
know that the lions in one capital roar very much like the lions in 
another ; that the churches are more or less large and splendid, the 
palaces pretty spacious, all the world over; and that there is 
scarcely a capital city in this Europe but has its pompous bronze 
statue or two of some periwigged, hook-nosed emperor, in a Roman 
habit, waving his bronze bMon on his broad-flanked brazen charger. 
We only saw these state old lions in Lisbon, whose roar has long 
since ceased to frighten one. First we went to the Church of 
St. Roch, to see a famous piece of mosaic-work there. It is a 
famous work of art, and was bought by I don’t know what king 
for I don’t know how much money. All this information may be 
perfectly relied on, though the fact is, we did not see the mosaic- 
work : the sacristan, who guards it, was yet in bed ; and it was veiled 
from our eyes in a side-chapel by great dirty damask curtains, 
which could not be removed, except when the sacristan’s toilette was 
done, and at the price of a dollar. So w^e were spared this mosaic 
exhibition ; and I think I always feel relieved when such an event 
occurs. I feel I have done my duty in coming to see the enormous 
animal : if he is not at home, virtute med me, &c. — we have done 
our best, and mortal can do no more. 

In order to reach that church of the forbidden mosaic, we had 
sweated up several most steep and dusty streets— hot and dusty, 
although it w^as but nine o’clock in the morning. Thence the guide 
conducted us into some little dust-powdered gardens, in which the 
people make believe to enjoy the verdure, and whence you look over 
a great part of the arid, dreary, stony city. There was no smoke, 
as in honest London, only dust — dust over the gaunt houses and 
the dismal yellow strips of gardens. Many churches were there, 
and tall half-baked-looking public edifices, that had a dry, uncom- 


596 JOURNEY FROM CORNEIILL TO CAIRO 


fortable, earthqiiaky look, to my idea. The ground - floors of 
the spacious houses by which we passed seemed the coolest and 
pleasantest portions of the mansion. They were cellars or ware- 
houses, for the most part, in which white-jacketed clerks sat smoking 
easy cigars. The streets were plastered with placards of a bull- 
fight, to take place the next evening (there was no opera that 
season) ; but it was not a real Spanish tauromachy — only a 
theatrical combat, as you could see by the picture in which the 
liorsernan was cantering off at three miles an hour, the bull tripping 
after him with tips to his gentle horns. Mules interminable, and 
almost all excellently sleek and handsome, were pacing down every 
street : here and there, but later in the day, came clattering along 
a smart rider on a prancing Spanish horse ; and in the afternoon 
a few families might be seen in the queerest old-fashioned little 
carriages, drawn by their jolly mules and swinging between, or 
rather before, enormous wheels. 

The churches I saw were of the florid periwig architecture — I 
mean of that pompous cauliflower kind of ornament which was the 
fashion in Louis the Fifteenth’s time, at which unlucky period a 
building mania seemed to have seized upon many of the monarchs 
of Europe, and innumerable public edifices were erected. It seems 
to me to have been the period in all history when society was the 
least natural, and perhaps the most dissolute ; and I have always 
fancied that the bloated artificial forms of the architecture partake 
of the social disorganisation of the time. Who can respect a 
simpering ninny, grinning in a Roman dress and a full-bottomed 
wig, who is made to pass off for a hero 1 or a fat woman in a hoop, 
and of a most doubtful virtue, who leers at you as a goddess ? In 
the palaces which we saw, several Court allegories were represented, 
which, atrocious as they were in point of art, might yet serve to 
attract the regard of the moraliser. There were Faith, Hope, and 
Charity restoring Don John to the arms of his happy Portugal : 
there were Virtue, Valour, and Victory saluting Don Emanuel : 
Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic (for what I know, or some 
mythologic nymphs) dancing before Don Miguel — the picture is 
there still, at the Ajuda; and ah me! Avhere is poor Mig? Well, 
it is these State lies and ceremonies that we persist in going to see ; 
whereas a man would have a much better insight into Portuguese 
manners, by planting himself at a corner, like yonder beggar, and 
watching the real transactions of the da3^ 

A drive to Belem is the regular route practised by the traveller 
who has to make only a short stay, and accordingly a couple of 
carriages were jirovided for our party, and we were driven through 
the long merry street of Belem, peopled by endless strings of mules, 


A DRIVE TO BELEM 


597 

— by thousands of gallegos, with water-barrels on their shoulders, 
or lounging by the fountains to hire, — by the Lisbon and Belem 
omnibuses, with four mules, jingling along at a good pace ; and it 
seemed to me to present a far more lively and cheerful, though not 
so regular, an appearance as the stately quarters of the city we had 
left behind us. The little shops were at full work — the men brown, 
well dressed, manly, and handsome : so much cannot, I am sorry to 
say, be said for the ladies, of whom, with every anxiety to do so, 
our party could not perceive a single good-looking specimen all day. 
The noble blue Tagus accompanies you all along these three miles of 
busy pleasant street, whereof the chief charm, as I thought, was its 
look of genuine business — that appearance of comfort which the 
cleverest Court-architect never knows how to give. 

The carriages (the canvas one with four seats and the chaise in 
which I drove) were brought suddenly up to a gate with the Royal 
arms over it ; and here we were introduced to as queer an exhibition 
as tlie eye has often looked on. Tliis was the state-carriage house, 
where there is a museum of huge old tumble-down gilded coaches of 
the last century, lying here, mouldy and dark, in a sort of limbo. 
The gold has vanished from the great lumbering old wheels and 
l>anels; the velvets are woefully tarnished. When one thinks of 
the patches and x^owder that have simpered out of those plate glass 
windows — the mitred bishops, the big-wigged marshals, the shovel- 
hatted abb^s which they have borne in their time — the human mind 
becomes affected in no ordinary degree. Some human minds heave 
a sigh for the glories of bygone days ; while others, considering 
rather the lies and humbug, the vice and servility, which went 
framed and glazed and enshrined, creaking along in those old 
Juggernaut cars, with fools worshipping under the wheels, console 
themselves for the decay of institutions that may have been splendid 
and costly, but were ponderous, clumsy, slow, and unfit for daily 
wear. The guardian of these defunct old carriages tells some pro- 
digious fibs concerning them : he pointed out one carriage that was 
six hundred years old in his calendar ; but any connoisseur in bric- 
h-brac can see it was built at Paris in the Regent Orleans’ time. 

Hence it is but a step to an institution in full life and vigour, 
— a noble orphan-school for one thousand boys and girls, founded 
by Don Pedro, who gave up to its use the superb convent of Belem, 
with its splendid cloisters, vast airy dormitories, and magnificent 
church. Some Oxford gentlemen wouhl have wept to see the 
desecrated edifice, — to think that the shaven polls and white gowns 
were banished from it to give ])lace to a thousand children, who 
have not even the clergy to instruct them. “ Every lad here may 
choose his trade,” our little informant said, who addressed us in 


598 JOURNEY FROM CORNHILL TO CAIRO 

better French than any of our party spoke, wliose manners were 
perfectly gentlemanlike and respectful, and whose clothes, though of 
a common cotton stuff, were cut and worn with a military neatness 
and precision. All the children whom we remarked were dressed 
with similar neatness, and it was a pleasure to go through their 
various rooms for study, wiiere some were busy at mathematics, 
some at drawing, some attending a lecture on tailoring, while others 
were sitting at the feet of a professor of the science of shoe making. 
All the garments of the establishment were made by the pupils; 
even the deaf and dumb were drawing and reading, and the blind 
were, for the most part, set to perform on musical instruments, and 
got up a concert for the visitors. It was then we wished ourselves 
of the numbers of the deaf and dumb, for the poor fellows made 
noises so horrible, that even as blind beggars they could hardly get 
a livelihood in the musical way. 

Hence we were driven to the huge i)alace of Necessidades, which 
is but a mng of a building that no King of Portugal ought ever 
to be rich enough to complete, and which, if perfect, might outvie 
the Tower of Babel. The mines of Brazil must have been productive 
of gold and silver indeed when the founder imagined this enormous 
edifice. From the elevation on which it stands it commands the 
noblest views, — the city is spread before it, with its many churches 
and towers, and for many miles you see the magnificent Tagus, 
rolling by banks crowned with trees and towers. But to arrive 
at this enormous building you have to climb a steep suburb of 
wretched huts, many of them with dismal gardens of dry cnicked 
earth, where a few reedy sprouts of Indian corn seemed to be the 
chief cultivation, and which were guarded by huge plants of spiky 
aloes, on which the rags of the proprietors of the huts were sunning 
themselves. The terrace before the palace was similarly encroached 
upon by these wretched habitations. A few millions judiciously 
expended might make of this arid hill one of the most magnificent 
gardens in the world; and the palace seems to me to excel for 
situation any Royal edifice I have ever seen. But the Imts of these 
swarming poor have crawled up close to its gates,— the superb walls 
of hewn stone stop all of a sudden with a lath-and-plaster hitch ; 
and capitals, and hewn stones for columns, still lying about on the 
deserted terrace, may lie there for ages to come, probably, and never 
take their places by the side of their brethren in yonder tall 
bankrupt galleries. The air of this pure sky has little effect upon 
the edifices, — the edges of the stone look as sharp as if the builders 
had just left their work ; and close to the grand entrance stands an 
outbuilding, part of which may have been burnt fifty years ago, but 


THE PALACE 


599 

is in such cheerful preservation that you might fancy the fire had 
occurred yesterday. It must have been an awful sight from this 
hill to have looked at the city spread before it, and seen it reeling 
and swaying in the time of the earthquake. I thought it looked so 
hot and shaky, that one might fancy a return of the fit. In several 
places still remain gaps and chasms, and ruins lie here and there as 
they cracked and fell. 

Although the palace has not attained anything like its full 
growth, yet what exists is quite big enough for the monarch of 
such a little country ; and Versailles or Windsor has not apart- 
ments more nobly proportioned. The Queen resides in the Ajuda, 
a building of much less pretensions, of which the yellow walls and 
beautiful gardens are seen between Belem and the city. The 
Necessidades are only used for grand galas, receptions of ambas- 
sadors, and ceremonies of state. In the throne-room is a huge 
throne, surmounted by an enormous gilt crown, than which I have 
never seen anything larger in the finest pantomime at Drury Lane ; 
but the effect of this splendid piece is lessened by a shabby old 
Brussels carpet, almost the only other article of furniture in the 
apartment, and not quite large enough to cover its spacious floor. 
The looms of Kidderminster have supplied tlie web which ornaments 
the “Ambassadors’ Waiting-Room,” and the ceilings are painted 
with huge allegories in distemper, which pretty well correspond 
with the other furniture. Of all the undignified objects in the 
world, a palace out at elbows is surely the meanest. Such places 
ought not to be seen in adversity, — splendour is their decency,— 
and when no longer able to maintain it, they should sink to the 
level of tlieir means, calmly subside into manufactories, or go shabby 
in seclusion. 

There is a picture-gallery belonging to the palace that is quite 
of a piece with the furniture, where are the mythological pieces 
relative to the kings before alluded to, and where the English 
visitor will see some astonishing pictures of the Duke of Wellington, 
done in a very characteristic style of Portuguese art. There is also 
a chapel, which has been decorated with much care and sumptuous- 
ness of ornament — the altar surmounted by a ghastly and horrible 
carved figure in the taste of the time when faith was strengthened 
by the shrieks of Jews on the rack, and enlivened by the roasting 
of heretics. Other such frightful images may be seen in the churches 
of the city ; those which we saw were still rich, tawdry, and splendid 
to outward show, although the French, as usual, had robbed tlieir 
shrines of their gold and silver, and the statues of their jewels and 
crowns. But brass and tinsel look to the visitor full as well at a 
little distance, — as doubtless Soult and Junot thought, when they 


()00 JOURNEY FROM CORNHILL TO CAIRO 


despoiled these places of worship, like French philosophers as 
they were. 

A friend, with a classical turn of mind, was bent upon seeing 
the aqueduct, whither we went on a dismal excursion of three hours, 
in the worst carriages, over the most diabolical clattering roads, up 
and down dreary parched hills, on which grew a few grey olive-trees 
and many aloes. When we arrived, the gate leading to the aque- 
duct was closed, and we were entertained with a legend of some 
respectable character who had made a good livelihood there for 
some time past lately, having a private key to this very aqueduct, 
and lying in wait there for unwary travellers like ourselves, whom 
he pitched down the arches into the ravines below, and there 
robbed them at leisure. So that all we saw was the door and the 
tall arches of the aqueduct, and by the time we returned to town it 
was time to go on board the ship again. If the inn at which we 
had sojourned was not of the best quality, the bill, at least, would 
have done honour to the first establishment in London. We all 
left the house of entertainment joyfully, glad to get out of the sun- 
burnt city and go home. Yonder in the steamer was home, with 
its black fimnel and gilt portraiture of Lady Mary Wood at the 
bows ; and every soul on board felt glad to return to the friendly 
little vessel. But the authorities of Lisbon, however, are very 
suspicious of the departing stranger, and we were made to lie an 
hour in the river before the Sanita boat, where a passport is neces- 
sary to be procured before the traveller can quit the country. Boat 
after boat laden with priests and peasantry, with handsome red- 
sashed gallegos clad in brown, and ill-favoured women, came and 
got their permits, and were off, as we lay bumping up against the 
old hull of the Sanita boat ; but the officers seemed to take a 
delight in keeping us there bumping, looked at us quite calmly over 
the ship’s sides, and smoked their cigars without the least attention 
to the prayers which we shrieked out for release. 

If we were glad to get away from Lisbon, we were quite as 
sorry to be obliged to quit Cadiz, which we reached the next night, 
and where we were allowed a couple of hours’ leave to land and 
look about. It seemed as handsome within as it is stately without; 
the long narrow streets of an admirable cleanliness, many of the 
tall houses of rich and noble decorations, and all looking as if the 
city were in full prosperity. I have seen no more cheerful and 
animated sight than the long street leading from the quay where we 
were landed, and the market blazing in sunshine, i)iled with fruit, 
fish, and poultry, under many-coloured awnings ; the tall white 
houses with their balconies and galleries shining round about, and 


CADIZ 


601 


the sky above so blue that the best cobalt in all the paint-box looks 
muddy and dim in comparison to it. There were pictures for a 
year in that market-place — from the copper-coloured old hags and 
beggars who roared to you for the love of Heaven to give money, to 
the swaggering dandies of the market, with red sashes and tight 
clothes, looking on superbly, with a hand on the hip and a cigar in 
the mouth. These must be the chief critics at the great bull-fight 
house yonder by the Alameda, with its scanty trees, and cool breezes 
facing the water. Nor are there any corks to the bulls’ horns here, 
as at Lisbon. A small old English guide who seized upon me the 
moment my foot was on shore, had a store of agreeable legends 
regarding the bulls, men, and horses that had been killed with 
unbounded profusion in the late entertainments which have taken 
place. 

It was so early an hour in the morning that the shops were 
scarcely opened as yet ; the churches, however, stood open for the 
faithful, and we met scores of women tripping towards them with 
pretty feet, and smart black mantillas, from which looked out fine 
dark eyes and handsome pale faces, very different from the coarse 
brown countenances we had seen at Lisbon. A very handsome 
modern cathedral, built by the present bishop at his own charges, 
was the finest of the public edifices we saw ; it was not, however, 
nearly so much frequented as another little church, crowded with 
altars and fantastic ornaments, and lights and gilding, where we 
were told to look behind a huge iron grille, and belield a bevy of 
black nuns kneeling. Most of the good ladies in the front ranks 
stopped their devotions, and looked at the strangers with as much 
curiosity as we directed at them through the gloomy bars of their 
chapel. The men’s convents are closed; that which contains the 
famous Murillos has been turned into an academy of the fine arts ; 
but the Englisli guide did not think the pictures were of sufficient 
interest to detain strangers, and so hurried us back to the sliore, and 
grumbled at only getting three shillings at parting for his trouble 
and his information. And so our residence in Andalusia began and 
ended before breakfast, and we went on board and steamed for 
Gibraltar, looking, as we passed, at Joinville’s black squadron, and 
the white houses of St. Mary’s across the bay, vith the hills of 
Medina Sidonia and Granada lying purple beyond them. There’s 
something even in those names which is pleasant to write down ; to 
have passed only two hours in Cadiz is something — to have seen 
real donnas with comb and mantle — real Caballeros with cloak and 
cigar — real Spanish barbers latliering out of brass basins — and to 
have heard guitars under the balconies: there was one that an old 
beggar was jangling in the market, whilst a huge leering fellow in 


602 JOURNEY FROM CORNHILL TO CAIRO 


bushy whiskers and a faded velvet dress came singing and jumping 
after our party, — not singing to a guitar, it is true, but imitating 
one capitally with his voice, and cracking his fingers by way of 
castanets, and performing a dance such as Figaro or Lablache might 
envy. How clear that fellow’s voice thrums on the ear even now ; 
and how bright and pleasant remains the recollection of the fine 
city and the blue sea, and the Spanish flags floating on the boats 
that danced over it, and Joinville’s band beginning to play stirring 
marches as we puffed out of the bay. 

The next stage was Gibraltar, where we were to change horses. 
Before sunset we skirted along the dark savage mountains of the 
African coast, and came to the Rock just before gun-fire. It is the 
very image of an enormous lion, crouched between the Atlantic and 
the Mediterranean, and set there to guard the passage for its British 
mistress. The next British lion is Malta, four days farther on in the 
Midland Sea, and ready to spring upon Egypt or pounce upon Syria, 
or roar so as to be heard at Marseilles in case of need. 

To the eyes of the civilian the first-named of these famous 
fortifications is by far the most imposing. The Rock looks so tre- 
mendous, that to ascend it, even without the compliment of shells 
or shot, seems a dreadful task — what would it be when all those 
mysterious lines of batteries were vomiting fire and brimstone ; when 
all those dark guns that you see poking their grim heads out of 
every imaginable cleft and zigzag should salute you with shot, both 
hot and cold ; and when, after tugging up the liideous perpendicular 
place, you were to find regiments of British grenadiers ready to 
plunge bayonets into your poor panting stomach, and let out 
artificially the little breath left there 1 It is a marvel to think that 
soldiers will mount such places for a shilling — ensigns for five and 
ninepence — a day : a cabman would ask double the money to go 
half way ! One meekly reflects upon the above strange truths, 
leaning over the ship’s side, and looking up the huge mountain, 
from the tower nestled at the foot of it to the thin flagstaff at the 
summit, up to which have been piled the most ingenious edifices 
for murder Christian science ever adopted. My hobby-horse is a 
quiet beast, suited for Park riding, or a gentle trot to Putney and 
back to a snug stable, and plenty of feeds of corn : — it can’t abide 
climbing hills, and is not at all used to gunpowder. Some men’s 
animals are so spirited that the very appearance of a stone-wall sets 
them jumping at it : regular chargers of hobbies, which snort and 
say “ Ha, ha ! ” at the mere notion of a battle. 


I 


CHAPTER III 


THE ‘^LADY MARY WOOD'' 


UR week’s voyage is now drawing to a close. We have just 



been to look at Cape Trafalgar, shining white over the 


finest blue sea. (We, who were looking at Trafalgar Square 
only the other day !) The sight of that cape must have disgusted 
J oinville and his fleet of steamers, as they passed yesterday into Cadiz 
bay, and to-morrow will give them a sight of St. Vincent. 

One of their steam-vessels has been lost off the coast of Africa ; 
they were obliged to burn her, lest the Moors should take possession 
of her. She was a virgin vessel, just out of Brest. Poor innocent ! 
to die in the very first month of her union with the noble whiskered 
god of war ! 

We Britons on board the English boat received the news of the 
GroenenlanS! s abrupt demise with grins of satisfaction. It was a 
sort of national compliment, and cause of agreeable congratulation. 
“ The lubbers ! ” we said ; “ the clumsy humbugs ! there’s none but 
Britons to rule the waves ! ” and we gave ourselves piratical airs, 
and went down presently and were sick in our little buggy berths. 
It was pleasant, certainly, to laugh at Joinville’s admiral’s flag 
floating at his foremast, in yonder black ship, with its two thunder- 
ing great guns at the bows and stern, its busy crew swarming on 
the deck, and a crowd of obsequious shore-boats bustling round 
the vessel — and to sneer at the Mogador warrior, and vow that 
we English, had we been inclined to do the business, would have 
performed it a great deal better. 

Now yesterday at Lisbon we saw H.M.S. Caledonia. This, 
on the contrary, inspired us with feelings of respect and awful 
pleasure. There she lay — the huge sea-castle — bearing the un- 
conquerable flag of our country. She had but to open her jaws, 
as it were, and she might bring a second earthquake on the city 
— batter it into kingdom-come — with the Ajuda palace and the 
Necessidades, the churches, and the lean, dry, empty streets, and 
Don John, tremendous on horseback, in the midst of Black Horse 
Square. Wherever we looked we could see that enormous 


604 JOURNEY FROM CORNHILL TO CAIRO 


Caledonia, with her flasliing tliree lines of guns. We looked at 
tlie little boats which ever and anon came out of this monster, with 
humble wonder. There was the lieutenant who boarded us at 
midnight before we dropped anchor in the river : ten white-jacketed 
men pulling as one, swept along with the barge, gig, boat, curricle, 
or coach-and-six, with which he came up to us. We examined him 
— his red whiskers — his collars turned down — his duck trousers, his 
bullion epaulets — with awe. With the same reverential feeling we 
examined the seamen— the young gentleman in the bows of the 
boat — ^the handsome young officers of marines we met sauntering 
in the town next day — the Scotch surgeon who boarded us as we 
weighed anchor — every man, down to the broken-nosed mariner who 
was drunk in a wine-house, and had Caledonia written on his hat. 
Whereas at the Frenchmen we looked with undisguised contempt. 
We were ready to burst with laughter as we j^assed the Prince’s 
vessel — there was a little French boy in a French boat alongside 
cleaning it, and twirling about a little French mop — we thought it 
the most comical, contemptible French boy, mop, boat, steamer, 
prince — Psha ! it is of this wretched vapouring stuff that false 
patriotism is made. I write this as a sort of homily d iwolios, of 
the day, and Cape Trahxlgar, off which we lie. What business have 
I to strut the deck, and clap my wings, and cry “ Cock-a-doodle- 
doo ” over it 1 Some compatriots are at that work even now. 

We have lost one by one all our jovial company. There were 
the five Oporto wine-merchants — all hearty English gentlemen 
— gone to their wine-butts, and their red-legged partridges, and 
their duels at Oporto. It appears tliat these gallant Britons fight 
every morning among themselves, and give the benighted people 
among whom they live an opportunity to admire the spirit national. 
There is the brave honest major, with his wooden leg — the kindest 
and simplest of Irishmen : he has embraced his children, and 
reviewed his little invalid garrison of fifteen men, in the fort which 
he commands at Belem, by this time, and, I have no doubt, played 
to every soul of them the twelve tunes of his musical-box. It was 
pleasant to see him with that musical-box — how pleased he wound 
it up after dinner — how hap})ily he listened to the little clinking 
tunes as they galloped, ding-dong, after each other ! A man who 
carries a musical-box is always a good-natured man. 

Then there was his Grace, or his Grandeur, the Archbishop of 
Beyrouth (in the parts of the infidels). His Holiness’s Nuncio to the 
Court of Her Most Faithful Majesty, and who mingled among us 
like any simple mortal, — except that he had an extra smiling 
courtesy, which simide mortals do not always possess ; and when 
you passed him as such, and pufted your cigar in his face, took off 


TRAVELLING FRIENDS 


605 


his hat with a grin of such prodigious rapture, as to lead you to 
suppose that the most delicious privilege of his whole life was that 
permission to look at the tip of your nose or of your cigar. With 
this most reverend prelate was his Grace’s brother and chaplain — a 
very greasy and good-natured ecclesiastic, who, from his physiog- 
nomy, I would have imagined to be a dignitary of the Israelitish 
rather than the Romish Church — as profuse in smiling courtesy as 
his Lordship of Beyrouth. These two had a meek little secretary 
between them, and a tall French cook and valet, who, at meal 
times, might be seen busy about the cabin where their reverences 
lay. They were on their backs for the greater part of the voyage ; 
their yellow countenances were not only unshaven, but, to judge 
from appearances, unwashed. Tliey ate in private; and it was 
only of evenings, as the sun was setting over the western wave, and, 
comforted by the dinner, the cabin-passengers assembled on the 
quarter-deck, that we saw the dark faces of the reverend 'gentlemen 
among us for a while. They sank darkly into their berths when 
the steward’s bell tolled for tea. 

At Lisbon, where we came to anchor at midnight, a special 
boat came off, whereof the crew exhibited every token of reverence 
for the ambassador of the ambassador of Heaven, and carried him 
off from our company. This abrupt departure in the darkness 
disappointed some of us, who had promised ourselves the pleasure 
of seeing his Grandeur dejjart in state in the morning, sliaved, 
clean, and in full pontificals, the tripping little secretary swing- 
ing an incense-pot before him, and the greasy chaplain bearing his 
crosier. 

Next day we had another bishop, who occupied the very same 
berth his Grace of Beyrouth had quitted — was sick in the very same 
way — so much so that this cabin of the Lady Mary Wood is to 
be christened “ the bishop’s berth ” henceforth ; and a handsome 
mitre is to be painted on the basin. 

Bishop No. 2 was a very -stout, soft, kind-looking old gentleman, 
in a square cap, with a handsome tassel of green and gold round his 
portly breast and back. He was dressed in black robes and tight 
jnu'ijle stockings : and we carried him from Lisbon to the little 
fiat coast of Faro, of which the meek old gentleman was the 
chief pastor. 

We had not been half-an-hour from our anchorage in the Tagus, 
when his Lordship dived down into the episcopal berth. All that 
night there was a good smart breeze ; it blew fresh all the next 
day, as we went jumping over the blue bright sea ; and there was 
no sign of his Lordship the bishop until we were opposite the purple 
hills of Algarve, which lay some ten miles distant, — a yellow sunny 


606‘ JOURNEY FROM CORNHILL TO CAIRO 


shore stretching flat before them, whose long sandy flats and villages 
we could see with our telescope from the steamer. 

Presently a little vessel, with a huge shining lateen sail, and 
bearing the blue and white Portuguese flag, was seen playing a sort 
of leap-frog on the jolly waves, jumping over them, and ducking 
down as merry as could be. This little boat came towards the 
steamer as quick as ever she could jump ; and Captain Cooper 
roaring out, “ Stop her ! ” to Lady Mary irood, her Ladyship’s 
paddles suddenly ceased twirling, and news was carried to the 
good bishop that his boat was almost alongside, and tliat his hour 
was come. 

It was rather an aftecting sight to see the poor old fat gentleman, 
looking wistfully over the water as the boat now came up, and her 
eight seamen, with great noise, energy, and gesticulation, laid her by 
tlie steamer. Tlie steamer steps were let down ; his Lordship’s 
servant, in blue and yellow livery (like the Edinburgh Review)^ 
cast over the episcopal luggage into the boat, along with his own 
bundle and the jack-boots with which he rides postillion on one of 
the bishop’s fat mules at Faro. The blue and yellow domestic 
went down the steps into the boat. Then came the bishop’s turn ; 
but he couldn’t do it for a long while. He went from one passenger 
to another, sadly shaking them by the hand, often taking leave 
and seeming loth to depart, until Captain Cooper, in a stern but 
respectful tone, touched him on the shoulder, and said, I know not 
with what correctness, being ignorant of the Spanish language, 
“ Seiior ’Bispo ! Sefior ’Bispo ! ” on which summons the poor old 
man, looking ruefully round him once more, put his square cap 
under his arm, tucked up his long black petticoats, so as to show 
his purple stockings and jolly fat calves, and went trembling down 
the steps towards the boat. The good old man ! I wish I had had 
a shake of that trembling podgy hand somehow before he went 
upon his sea martyrdom. I felt a love for that soft-hearted old 
Christian. Ah ! let us hope his governante tucked him comfortably 
in bed when he got to Faro that night, and made him a warm gruel 
and put his feet in warm water. The men clung around him, and 
almost kissed him as they popped him into the boat, but he did 
not heed their caresses. Away went the boat scudding madly 
before the wind. Bang ! another lateen-sailed boat in the distance 
fired a gun in his honour; but the wind was blowing away from 
the shore, and who knows when that meek bishop got home to 
Ids gruel ? 

I think these were the notables of our party. I will not 
mention the laughing ogling lady of Catliz, wliose manners, I very 
much regret to say, were a great deal too lively for my sense of 


THE MEEK LIEUTENANT 


607 


propriety ; nor those fair sufferers, her coiiipaiiions, who lay on the 
deck with sickly, smiling female resignation : nor the heroic children, 
who no sooner ate biscuit than tliey were ill, and no sooner were ill 
than they began eating biscuit again : but just allude to one other 
martyr, the kind lieutenant in charge of the mails, and who bore 
his cross with what I can’t but think a very touching and noble 
resignation. 

There’s a certain sort of man whose doom in the world is dis- 
appointment, — who excels in it, — and whose luckless triumphs in 
his meek career of life, I have often thought, must be regarded by 
the kind eyes above with as much favour as the splendid successes 
and achievements of coarser and more prosperous men. As I sat 
with the lieutenant upon deck, his telescope laid over his lean legs, 
and he looking at the sunset with a pleased, withered old face, he 
gave me a little account of his history. I take it he is in nowise 
disinclined to talk about it, simple as it is : he has been seven-and- 
thirty years in the navy, being somewhat more mature in the 
service than Lieutenant Peel, Rear-Admiral Prince de Joinville, 
and other commanders who need not be mentioned. He is a very 
well-educated man, and reads prodigiously, — travels, histories, lives 
of eminent worthies and heroes, in his simple way. He is not in 
the least angry at his want of luck in the profession. “Were I 
a boy to-morrow,” he said, “I would begin it again; and when I 
see my schoolfellows, and how they have got on in life, if some are 
better off than I am, I find many are worse, and have no call to be 
discontented.” So he carries her Majesty’s mails meekly through 
this world, waits upon port-admirals and captains in his old glazed 
hat, and is as proud of the pennon at the bow of his little boat, as 
if it were flying from the mainmast of a thundering man-of-war. 
He gets two hundred a year for his services, and has an old mother 
and a sister living in England somewhere, who I will wager (though 
he never, I swear, said a word about it) have a good portion of this 
princely income. 

Is it breaking a confidence to tell Lieutenant Bundy’s history '? 
Let the motive excuse the deed. It is a good, kind, wholesome, 
and noble character. Why should we keep all our admiration for 
those who win in this world, as we do, sycophants as we are? 
When we write a novel, our great stupid imaginations can go no 
further than to marry the hero to a fortune at the end, and to find 
out that he is a lord by right. 0 blundering lickspittle morality ! 
And yet I would like to fancy some happy retributive Utopia in 
the peaceful cloudland, where my friend the meek lieutenant should 
find the yards of his ship manned as he went on board, all the guns 
firing an enormous salute (only without the least noise or vile smell 


608 JOURNEY FROM CORNHILL TO CAIRO 


of powder), and he be sainted on the deck as Admiral Sir James, 
or Sir Joseph — ay, or Lord Viscount Bundy, knight of all the 
orders above the sun. 

I think this is a sulhcient, if not a complete catalogue of the 
worthies on board the Lady Mary Wood. In the week we were 
on board — it seemed a year, by the way — we came to regard the 
ship quite as a home. We felt for the captain — the most good- 
humoured, active, careful, ready of captains — a filial, a fraternal 
regard; for the provider, who provided for us with admirable com- 
fort and generosity, a genial gratitude ; and for the brisk steward’s 
lads — brisk in serving the banquet, symj)athising in handing the 
basin — every possible sentiment of regard and goodwill. What 
winds blew, and how many knots we ran, are all noted down, no 
doubt, in the shii)’s log ; and as for what ships we saw — every one 
of them with their gunnage, tonnage, their nation, their direction 
whither they were bound — were not these all noted down with 
surprising ingenuity and precision by the lieutenant, at a family 
desk at which he sat every night, before a great paper elegantly 
and mysteriously ruled off with his large ruler? I have a regard 
for every man on board that shijq from the captain down to the 
crew — down even to the cook, with tattooed arms, sweating among 
the saucepans in the galley, who used (with a touching affection) 
to send us locks of his hair in the soup. And so, wliile our feelings 
and recollections are warm, let us shake hands with this knot of 
good fellows, comfortably floating about in their little box of wood 
and iron, across Channel, Biscay Bay, and the Atlantic, from South- 
ampton Water to Gibraltar Straits. 


CHAPTER IV 


GIBRALTAR 


UPPOSE all the nations of the earth to send fitting ambassadors 



to represent them at Wapping or Portsmouth Point, with each, 


under its own national signboard and language, its appropriate 
house of call, and your imagination may figure the Main Street of 
Gibraltar : almost the only part of the town, I believe, which boasts 
of tlie name of street at all, tlie remaining houserows being modestly 
called lanes, such as Bomb Lane, Battery Lane, Fusee Lane, and 
so on. In Main Street the Jews predominate, the Moors abound; 
and from tlie “ Jolly Sailor,” or the brave “ Horse Marine,” where 
the people of our nation are drinking British beer and gin, you hear 
choruses of “ Garryowen ” or “ The Lass I left behind me ” ; while 
through the flaiing lattices of the Spanish ventas come the clatter of 
castanets and the jingle and moan of Spanish guitars and ditties. 
It is a curious sight at evening this thronged street, with the people 
in a hundred difierent costumes, bustling to and fro under the coarse 
fiare of the lamps ; swarthy Moors, in white or crimson robes ; dark 
Spanish smugglers in tufted hats, with gay silk handkerchiefs round 
tlieir heads ; fuddled seamen from men-of-war, or merchantmen ; 
porters, Galician or Genoese ; and at every few minutes’ interval, 
little squads of soldiers tramping to relieve guard at some one of 
the innumerable posts in the town. 

Some of our party went to a Spanish venta, as a more con- 
venient or romantic place of residence than an English house ; others 
made choice of the club-house in Commercial Square, of which I 
formed an agreeable picture in my imagination ; rather, perhaps, 
resembling tlie Junior United Service Club in Charles Street, by 
which every Londoner has passed ere this with respectful pleasure, 
catching glimpses of magnificent blazing candelabras, under which 
sit neat half-pay officers, drinking half-pints of port. The club- 
house of Gibraltar is not, however, of the Charles Street sort : it 
may have been cheerful once, and there arc yet relics of splendour 
about it. When officers wore pigtails, and in the time of Governor 
O’Hara, it may have been a handsome place ; but it is mouldy and 
decrepit now; and though his Excellency, Mr. Bulwer, was living 
5 2 Q 


610 JOURNEY FROM CORNHILL TO CAIRO 


tliere, and made no complaints that I heard of, other less distin- 
guished persons thought they had reason to grumble. Indeed, what 
is travelling made of? At least half its {deasures and incidents come 
out of inns ; and of them the tourist can speak with much more 
truth and vivacity than of historical recollections compiled out of 
histories, or .filched out of handbooks. But to speak of the best 
inn in a place needs no apology : that at least, is useful information. 
As every person intending to visit Gibraltar cannot have seen the 
flea-bitten countenances of our companions, who fled from their 
Spanish venta to take refuge at the club the morning after our 
arrival, they may surely be thankful for being directed to the best 
house of accommodation in one of the most unromantic, uncomfort- 
able, and prosaic of towns. 

If one had a right to break the sacred confidence of the 
mahogany, I could entertain you with many queer stories of 
Gibraltar life, gathered from the lips of the gentlemen who enjoyed 
themselves round the dingy tablecloth of the club-house coffee-room, 
richly decorated with cold gravy and spilt beer. I heard there the 
very names of the gentlemen who wrote the famous letters from the 
Warsjnte regarding the French proceedings at Mogador; and met 
several refugee Jews from that place, who said that they were much 
more afraid of the Kabyles without the city than of the guns of the 
French squadron, of whicli they seemed to make rather light. I 
heard the last odds on the ensuing match between Captain Smith’s 
b. g. Bolter, and Captain Brown’s ch. c. Roarer : how the gun-room 
of her Majesty’s ship Purgatory had “cobbed” a tradesman of 
the town, and of the row in consequence. I heard capital stories of 
the way in whicli Wilkins had escaped the guard, and Thompson 
had been locked up among the mosquitoes for being out after ten 

without the lantern. I heard how the governor was an old , 

but to say what, would be breaking a confidence : only this may be 
divulged, that the epithet was exceedingly complimentary to Sir 
Robert Wilson. All the while these conversations were going on, 
a strange scene of noise and bustle was passing in the market-place, 
in front of the window, where Moors, Jews, Spaniards, soldiers were 
thronging in the sun ; and a ragged fat fellow, mounted on a tobacco- 
barrel, with his hat cocked on his ear, was holding an auction, and 
roaring with an energy and impudence that would have done credit 
to Covent Garden. 

The Moorish castle is the only building about the Rock which 
has an air at all picturesque or romantic ; there is a plain Roman 
Catholic cathedral, a hideous new Protestant church of the cigar- 
divan architecture, and a Court-house with a portico which is said 
to be an imitation of the Parthenon : the ancient religious houses 


CLUB HOUSE GOSSIP 6ll 

of the Spanish town are gone, or turned into military residences, and 
masked so that you would never know their former pious destination. 
You walk through narrow whitewashed lanes, bearing such martial 
names as are before mentioned, and by-streets with barracks on either 
side : small Newgate-like looking buildings, at the doors of which 
you may see the sergeants’ ladies conversing; or at the open win- 
dows of the officers’ quarters. Ensign Fipps lying on his sofa and 
smoking his cigar, or Lieutenant Sim son practising the flute to 
while away the weary hours of garrison dulness. I was surprised 
not to find more persons in the garrison library, where is a magnifi- 
cent reading-room, and an admirable collection of books. 

In spite of the scanty herbage and the dust on the trees, the 
Alameda is a beautiful walk ; of which the vegetation has been as 
laboriously cared for as the tremendous fortifications which flank 
it on either side. The vast Rock rises on one side with its inter- 
minable works of defence, and Gibraltar Bay is shining on the 
other, out on which from the terraces immense cannon are per- 
petually looking, surrounded by plantations of cannon-balls and 
beds of bomb-shells, sufficient, one would think, to blow away the 
whole peninsula. The horticultural and military mixture is indeed 
very queer : here and there temples, rustic summer-seats, &c., have 
been erected in the garden, but you are sure to see a great squat 
mortar look up from among the flower-pots : and amidst the aloes 
and geraniums sprouts the green petticoat and scarlet coat of a 
Highlander. Fatigue-parties are seen winding up the hill, and 
busy about the endless cannon-ball plantations ; awkward squads 
are drilling in the open spaces : sentries marching everywhere, and 
(this is a caution to artists) I am told have orders to run any man 
through who is discovered making a sketch of the place. It is 
always beautiful, especially at evening, when the people are saunter- 
ing along the walks, and the moon is shining on the waters of the 
bay and the hills and twinkling white houses of the opposite shore. 
Then the place becomes quite romantic : it is too dark to see the 
dust on the dried leaves ; the cannon-balls do not intrude too much, 
but have subsided into the shade; the awkward squads are in 
bed ; even the loungers are gone, the fan-flirting Spanish ladies, 
the sallow black-eyed children, and the trim white-jacketed dandies. 
A fife is heard from some craft at roost on the quiet waters some- 
where : or a faint cheer from yonder black steamer at the Mole, 
which is about to set out on some night expedition. You forget 
that the town is at all like Wapping, and deliver yourself up 
entirely to romance; the sentries look noble pacing there, silent 
in the moonlight, and Sandy’s voice is quite musical as he challenges 
with a “ Who goes there ? ” 


612 JOURNEY FROM CORNHILL TO CAIRO 


“ All’s Well ” is very pleasant when sung decently in tune, and 
inspires noble and poetic ideas of duty, courage, and danger : but 
wlien you hear it shouted all the night through, accompanied by a 
clapping of muskets in a time of profound peace, the sentinel’s cry 
becomes no more romantic to tlie hearer than it is to the sandy 
Connaught-man or the bare-legged Highlander wlio delivers it. It 
is best to read about wars comfortably in Harry Lorrequer or Scott’s 
novels, in which knights shout their war-cries, and jovial Irish 
bayoneteers hurrah, without depriving you of any blessed rest. Men 
of a different way of thinking, however, can suit themselves per- 
fectly at Gibraltar ; where there is marching and counter- marching, 
challenging and relieving guard all the night througli. And not 
here in Commercial Square alone, but all over the huge Rock in 
the darkness — all through the mysterious zigzags, and round tlie 
d.irk cannon-ball pyramids, and along tlie vast rock galleries, and 
up to the topmost flagstaff, where the sentry can look out over 
two seas, poor fellows are marching and clapping muskets, and 
crying “All’s Well,” dressed in cap and feather, in place of honest 
nightcaps best befitting the decent hours of sleep. 

All these martial noises three of us heard to the utmost advan- 
tage, lying on iron bedsteads at the time in a cracked old room on 
tlie ground-floor, the open windows of which looked into the square. 
No spot could be more favourably selected for watching the humours 
of a garrison town by night. About midnight, the door hard by 
us was visited by a party of young officers, who having had quite 
as much drink as was good for them, Avere naturally inclined for 
more ; and when we remonstrated through the windows, one of them 
in a young tipsy voice asked after our mothers, and finally reeled 
away. Hoav charming is the conversation of high-si>irited youth ! 
I don’t know whether the guard got hold of them : but certainly 
if a civilian had been hiccuping through the streets at that hour, 
he would have been carried off to the guard-house, and left to the 
mercy of the mosquitoes there, and had up before the Governor in 
the morning. The young man in the coffee-room tells me he goes 
to sleep every night with the keys of Gibraltar under his pillow. 
It is an awful image, and somehow completes the notion of the 
slumbering fortress. Fancy Sir Robert Wilson, his nose just visible 
over the sheets, his nightcap and the huge key (you see the very 
identical one in Reynolds’s portrait of Lord Heathfield) peeping 
out from under the bolster ! 

If I entertain you with accounts of inns and nightcaps it is 
because I am more familiar with these subjects than AAuth history 
and fortifications : as far as I can understand the former, Gibraltar 


FAREWELL TO GIBRALTAR 


613 


is the great British depot for smuggling go(xls into the Peninsula. 
You see vessels lying in the harbour, and are told in so many words 
they are smugglers ; all those smart Spaniards with cigar and 
mantles are smugglers, and run tobaccos and cotton into Catalonia ; 
all the respected merchants of the place are smugglers. The other 
day a Spanish revenue vessel was shot to death under the thundering 
great guns of the fort, for neglecting to bring to, but it so happened 
that it was in chase of a smuggler : in this little corner of her 
dominions Britain proclaims war to custom-houses, and protection 
to free trade. Perhaps ere a very long day, England may be acting 
that part towards the world, which Gibraltar performs towards 
Spain now ; and the last war in which we shall ever engage may 
be a custom-house war. For once establish railroads and abolish 
preventive duties through Europe, and what is there left to fight 
fori It will matter very little then under what flag people live, 
and foreign ministers and ambassadors may enjoy a dignified sine- 
cure ; the army will rise to the rank of peaceful constables, not 
having any more use for their bayonets than those worthy people 
have for their weapons now who accompany the law at assizes 
under the name of javelin-men. The apparatus of bombs and 
eighty-four pounders may disappear from the Alameda, and the 
crops of cannon-balls which now grow there may give place to 
other plants more pleasant to the eye ; and the great key of 
Gibraltar may be left in the gate for anybody to turn at will, and 
Sir Robert Wilson may sleep in quiet. 

I am afraid I thought it was rather a release, when, having 
made up our minds to examine the Rock in detail and view the 
magnificent excavations and galleries, the admiration of all military 
men, and the terror of any enemies who may attack the fortress, 
we received orders to embark forthwith in the I'agus, which was 
to carry us to Malta and Constantinople. So we took leave of this 
famous Rock — this great blunderbuss — which we seized out of the 
hands of the natural owners a hundred and forty years ago, and 
which we have kept ever since tremendously loaded and cleaned 
and ready for use. To seize and have it is doubtless a gallant 
thing ; it is like one of those tests of courage which one reads of in 
the chivalrous romances, Avhen, for instance. Sir Huon of Bordeaux 
is called upon to prove his knighthood by going to Babylon and 
pulling out the Sultan’s beard and front teeth in the midst of his 
Court there. But, after all, justice must confess it was rather hard 
on the poor Sultan. If we had the Spaniards established at Land’s 
End, with impregnable Spanish fortifications on St. Michael’s Mount, 
we should perhaps come to the same conclusion. Meanwhile let 
us hope, during this long period of deprivation, the Sultan of Spain 


614 JOURNEY FROM CORNHILL TO CAIRO 


is reconciled to the loss of his front teeth and bristling whiskers — 
let us ev^en try to think that he is better without them. At all 
events, right or wrong, whatever may be our title to the property, 
there is no Englishman but must think with pride of the manner 
in which his countrymen have kept it, and of the courage, endurance, 
and sense of duty with which stout old Eliott and his companions 
resisted Crillon and the Spanish battering ships and his fifty 
thousand men. There seems to be something more noble in the 
success of a gallant resistance than of an attack, however brave. 
After failing in his attack on the fort, the French General visited 
the English Commander who had foiled him, and parted from 
him and his garrison in perfect politeness and good-humour. The 
English troops, Drinkwater says, gave him thundering cheers as he 
went away, and the Frencli in return complimented us on our 
gallantry, and lauded the humanity of our people. If we are to 
go on murdering each other in the old-fashioned way, what a pity 
it is that our battles cannot end in the old-fashioned way too ! 

One of our fellow-travellers, who had written a book, and had 
suffered considerably from sea-sickness during our passage along 
the coasts of France and Spain, consoled us all by saying that the 
very minute we got into the Mediterranean we might consider 
ourselves entirely free from illness ; and, in fact, that it was unheard 
of in the Inland Sea. Even in the Bay of Gibraltar the water 
looked bluer than anything I have ever seen — except Miss Smith’s 
eyes. I thought, somehow, the delicious faultless azure never could 
look angry — just like tlie eyes before alluded to — and under this 
assurance we passed the Strait, and began coasting the Afi'ican 
shore calmly and without the least apprehension, as if we were as 
much used to the tempest as Mr. T. P. Cooke. 

But when, in spite of the promise of the man who had written 
the book, we found ourselves worse than in the worst part of the 
Bay of Biscay, or off the storm-lashed rocks of Finisterre, we set 
down the author in question as a gross impostor, and had a mind 
to quarrel vdth him for leading us into this cruel error. The most 
provoking part of the matter, too, was, that the sky was deliciously 
clear and cloudless, the air balmy, the sea so insultingly blue that 
it seemed as if we had no right to be ill at all, and that the innumer- 
able little waves that frisked round about our keel were enjoying an 
anerithmon gelasma (this is one of my four Greek quotations ; 
depend on it I will manage to introduce the other three before the 
tour is done) — seemed to be enjoying, I say, the above-named 
Greek quotation at our expense. Here is the dismal log of 
Wednesday, 4th of September : — “ All attempts at dining very 
fruitless. Basins in requisition. Wind hard ahead. Que diable 


VALETTA 


615 


allais-je faire dans cette galere'? Writing or thinking impossible: 
so read ‘Letters from the ^gean.’” These brief words give, I think, 
a complete idea of wretchedness, despair, remorse, and prostration of 
soul and body. Two days previously we passed the forts and moles 
and yellow buildings of Algiers, rising very stately from the sea, and 
skirted by gloomy purple lines of African shore, with fires smoking 
in the mountains, and lonely settlements here and there. 

On the 5th, to the inexpressible joy of all, we reached Valetta, 
the entrance to the harbour of which is one of the most stately and 
agreeable scenes ever admired by sea-sick traveller. The small 
basin was busy with a hundred ships, from the huge guard-ship, 
which lies there a city in itself ; — merchantmen loading and crews 
cheering, under all the flags of the world flaunting in the sunshine ; 
a half-score of busy black steamers perpetually coming and going, 
coaling and painting, and puffing and hissing in and out of harbour ; 
slim men-of-war’s barges shooting to and fro, Avith long shining oars 
flashing like wings over the water ; hundreds of painted town-boats, 
with high heads and white awnings, — down to the little tubs in 
which some naked, tawny young beggars came paddling up to the 
steamer, entreating us to let them dive for halfpence. Round this 
busy blue water rise rocks, blazing in sunshine, and covered with 
every imaginable device of fortification ; to the right, St. Elmo, 
with flag and lighthouse ; and opposite, the Military Hospital, 
looking like a palace ; and all round, the houses of the city, for 
its size the handsomest and most stately in the world. 

Nor does it disappoint you on a closer inspection, as many a 
foreign town does. The streets are thronged with a lively com- 
fortable-looking population; the poor seem to inhabit handsome 
stone palaces, with balconies and projecting windows of heavy carved 
stone. The lights and shadows, the cries and stenches, the fruit- 
shops and fish-stalls, the dresses and chatter of all nations ; the 
sohliers in scarlet, and women in black mantillas the beggars, boat- 
men, barrels of pickled herrings and macaroni; the shovel-hatted 
priests and bearded capuchins ; the tobacco, grapes, onions, and 
sunshine ; the signboards, bottled-porter stores, the statues of saints 
and little chapels which jostle the stranger’s eyes as he goes up the 
famous stairs from the Water-gate, make a scene of such pleasant 
confusion and liveliness as I have never witnessed before. And the 
effect of the groups of multituclinous actors in this busy cheerful 
drama is heightened, as it Avere, by the decorations of the stage. 
The sky is delightfully brilliant ; all the houses and ornaments are 
stately; castle and palaces are rising all around; and the flag, 
towers, and walls of Fort St. Elmo look as fresh and magnificent 
as if they had been erected only yesterday. 


6l6 JOURNEY FROM CORNHILL TO CAIRO 


The Strada Rcalc lias a much more courtly appearance than 
that one described. Here are palaces, churches, court-houses, and 
libraries, the genteel London shops, and the latest articles of per- 
fumery. Gay young officers are strolling about in shell-jackets much 
too small for them : midshipmen are clattering by on hired horses ; 
squads of priests, habited after the fashion of Don Basilio in the 
opera, are demurely pacing to and fro ; professional beggars run 
shrieking after the stranger; and agents for horses, for inns, and 
for worse places still, follow him and insinuate the excellence of 
their goods. The houses where they are selling carpet-bags and 
pomatum were the palaces of the successors of the goodliest company 
of gallant knights the world ever heard tell of. It seems un- 
romantic ; but these were not the romantic Knights of St. John. 
The heroic days of the Order ended as the last Turkish galley lifted 
anchor after tlie memorable siege. Tlie present stately houses were 
built in times of peace and si)lendour and decay. I doubt whether 
the Auberge de Provence, where the “Union Club” flourishes now, 
has ever seen anything more romantic than the pleasant balls held 
in the great room there. 

The Church of St. John, not a handsome structure without, is 
magnificent within : a noble hall covered witli a rich embroidery of 
gilded carving, the chapels of the diflerent nations on either side, 
l)ut not interfering with the main structure, of which the whole is 
simple, and the details only splendid ; it seemed to me a fitting 
j)lace for this wealthy body of aristocratic soldiers, who made their 
devotions as it were on parade, and, though on their knees, never 
forgot their epaulets or their quarters of nobility. This mixture of 
religion and worldly pride seems incongruous at first ; but have Ave 
not at church at home similar relics of feudal ceremony 1 — the verger 
with the silver mace who precedes the vicar to the desk ; the two 
chaplains of my Lord Archbishop, who bow over his Grace as he 
enters the communion-table gate ; even poor John, who follows my 
Lady with a coroneted prayer-book, and makes his conge as he 
hands it into the pew. What a chivalrous absurdity is the banner 
of some high and mighty prince, hanging over his stall in Windsor 
Chapel, when you think of the purpose for which men are supposed 
to assemble there ! The Church of the Knights of St John is paved 
over Avith sprawling heraldic devices^ of the dead gentlemen of the 
dead Order ; as if, in the next Avorld, they exj)ected to take rank in 
conformity Avith their pedigrees, and Avouhl be marshalled into 
heaven according to the orders of precedence. Cumlirous handsome 
paintings adorn the AAnlls ami chapels, decorated Avith pompous 
monuments of Cnind Masters. Beneath is a cryjfl, Avhere more of 
these honourable and reverend Avanlors lie, in a state that a Simpson 


MALTA RELICS 


617 


would admire. In the altar are said to lie three of the most gallant 
relics in the world : the keys of Acre, Rhodes, and Jerusalem. 
What blood was shed in defending these emblems ! What faith, 
endurance, genius, and generosity ; what pride, hatred, ambition, and 
savage lust of blood were roused together for their guardianship ! 

In the lofty halls and corridors of the Governor’s house, some 
portraits of the late Grand Masters still remain : a very fine one, 
by Caravaggio, of a kniglit in gilt armour, hangs in the dining-room, 
near a full length of poor Louis XVI., in Royal robes, the very 
picture of uneasy impotency. But the portrait of De Vignacourt is 
the only one which has a respectable air ; the other chiefs of the 
famous Society are pompous old gentlemen in black, with huge peri- 
wigs, and crowns round their hats, and a couple of melancholy pages 
in yellow and red. But pages and wigs and Grand Masters liave 
almost faded out of the canvas, and are vanishing into Hades with 
a most melancholy indistinctness. The names of most of these 
gentlemen, however, live as yet in the forts of the place, which 
all seem to have been eager to build and christen : so that it seems 
as if, in the Malta mythology, they had been turned into freestone. 

In the armoury is the very suit painted by Caravaggio, by the 
side of the armour of the noble old La Valettc, whose heroism saved 
his island from the efforts of Mustapha and Dragut, and an army 
quite as fierce and numerous as that which was baffled before 
Gibraltar, by similar courage and resolution. Tlie sword of the 
last-named famous corsair (a most truculent little scimitar), thorn 
sands of pikes and halberts, little old cannons and wall-pieces, 
helmets and cuirasses, which the knights or their peoi)le wore, are 
trimly arranged against the wall, and, instead of spiking Turks or 
arming warriors, now serve to point morals and adorn tales. And 
here likewise are kept many thousand muskets, swords, and board- 
ing-pikes for daily use, and a couple of ragged old standards of one 
of the English regiments, who pursued and conquered in Egypt the 
remains of the haughty and famous French republican army, at 
whose appearance the last knights of Malta flung open the gates of 
all their fortresses, and consented to be extinguished without so 
much as a remonstrance, or a kick, or a struggle. 

We took a drive into what may be called the country ; where 
the fields are rocks, and the hedges are stones — passing by the 
stone gardens of the Florian, and wondering at the number and 
handsomeness of the stone villages and churches rising everywhere 
among the stony hills. Handsome villas were passed everywhere, 
and we drove for a long distance along the sides of an aqueduct, 
quite a Royal work of the Caravaggio in gold armour, the Grand 
Master de Vignacourt. A most agreeable contrast to the arid rocks 


6l8 JOURNEY FROM CORNHILL TO CAIRO 


of the general scenery was tlie garden at the Governor’s country- 
house ; with the orange-trees and water, its beautiful golden grapes, 
luxuriant flowers, and thick cool shrubberies. The eye longs for 
this sort of refresliment, after being seared with the hot glare of the 
general country ; and St. Antonio was as pleasant after Malta as 
Malta was after the sea. 

We paid the island a subsequent visit in November, passing 
seventeen days at an establishment called Fort Manuel there, and 
by punsters the Manuel des Voyageurs ; where Government accom- 
modates you with quarters ; where the authorities are so attentive 
as to scent your letters with aromatic vinegar before you receive 
them, and so careful of your health as to lock you up in your room 
every night lest you should walk in your sleep, and so over the 
battlements into the sea : if you escaped drowning in the sea, the 
sentries on the opposite shore would fire at you, hence the nature 
of the precaution. To drop, however, this satirical strain : those 
wdio know" w"hat quarantine is, may fiincy that the place somehow 
becomes unbearable in w"hich it has been endured. And though 
the November climate of Malta is like the most delicious May in 
England, and though there is every gaiety and amusement in the 
tow"n, a comfortable little opera, a good old library filled full of 
good old books (none of your works of modern science, travel, and 
liistory, but good old useless books of the last tw"o centuries), and 
nobody to trouble you in reading them, and though tlie society of 
Valetta is most hospitable, varied, and agreeable, yet somehow" one 
did not feel safe in the island, w"ith perpetual glimpses of Fort 
Manuel from the opposite shore ; and, lest the quarantine authori- 
ties should have a fancy to fetch one back again, on a pretext of 
posthumous plague, w"e made our w"ay to Naples by the very first 
opportunity — tliose w"ho remained, that is, of the little Eastern 
Expedition. They w"ere not all there. The Giver of life and death 
had removed two of our conii)any : one w"as left behind to die in 
Egypt, w"ith a mother to bew^ail his loss ; another w"e buried in the 
dismal lazaretto cemetery. 

One is bound to look at this, too, as a part of our journey. 
Disease and death are knocking ])erhaps at your next cabin door. 
Your kind and cheery companion has ridden his last ride and 
emptied his last glass beside you. And w'hile fond hearts are 
yearning for him fixr aw"ay, and his ow"n mind, if conscious, is turning 
eagerly tow-ards the spot of the w"orld whither affection or interest 
calls it — the Great Father summons the anxious spirit from earth 
to Himself, and ordains that the nearest and dearest shall meet here 
no more. 


DEATH IN THE LAZARETTO 619 

Such an occurrence as a death in a lazaretto, mere selfishness 
renders striking. We were walking with him but two days ago 
on deck. One has a sketch of him, another his card, with the 
address written yesterday, and given with an invitation to come 
and see him at home in the country, where his children are looking 
for him. He is dead in a day, and buried in the walls of the 
prison. A doctor felt his pulse by deputy — a clergyman comes 
from the town to read the last service over him — and the friends, 
who attend his funeral, are marshalled by lazaretto-guardians, so 
as not to touch each other. Every man goes back to his room and 
applies the lesson to himself. One would not so depart without 
seeing again the dear, dear faces. We reckon up those we love : 
they are but very few, but I think one loves them better than ever 
now. Should it be your turn next ? — and why not ? Is it pity or 
comfort to think of that affection wliicli watches and survives you 1 

The Maker has linked together the whole race of man with 
this chain of love. I like to think that there is no man but has 
had kindly feelings for some other, and he for his neighbour, until 
we bind together the whole family of Adam. Nor does it end here. 
It joins heaven and earth together. For my friend or my child of 
past days is still my friend or my child to me here, or in the home 
prepared for us by the Father of all. If identity survives the grave, 
as our faith tells us, is it not a consolation to think that there may 
be one or two souls among the purified and just whose affection 
watches us invisible, and follows the poor sinner on earth 1 


CHAPTER V 


ATHENS 

N ot feeling any enthusiasm myself about Athens, my bounden 
duty of course is clear, to sneer and laugh heartily at all who 
have. In fact, what business has a lawyer, who was in 
Pump Court this day three weeks, and whose common remling is 
law reports or the newspaper, to pretend to fixll in love for the long 
vacation witii mere poetry, of which I swear a great deal is very 
doubtful, and to get u]) an enthusiasm cpiite foreign to liis nature 
and usual calling in life '? What call have ladies to consider Greece 
“ romantic,” they who get their notions of mythology from the well- 
known pages of “ Tooke’s Pantheon ” ? Wliat is the reason that 
blundering Yorkshire scpiires, young dandies from Corfu regiments, 
jolly sailors from ships in the harbour, and yellow old Indians 
returning from Bundelcund, should think i)roper to be enthusiastic 
about a country of which they know nothing ; the mere physical 
beauty of which they cannot, for the most i)art, comprehend ; and 
because certain characters lived in it two thousand four hundred 
years ago 1 What have these iieople in common with Pericles ? Avhat 
have these ladies in common with Aspasia (0 fie) 1 Of the race of 
Englishmen who come wandering about the tomb of Socrates, do 
you think the majority would not have voted to hemlock him? 
Yes : for the very same superstition which leads men by the nose 
now, drove them onward in the days when the lowly husband of 
Xantippe died for daring to think simply and to speak the truth. 
I know of no quality more magnificent in fools than their faith : 
that perfect consciousness they have, that they are doing virtuous 
and meritoi'ious actions, when they are i)erforming acts of folly, 
murdering Socrates, or ])elting Aristides with holy oyster-shells — 
all for Virtue’s sake ; and a “ History of Dulness in all Ages of the 
World,” is a book which a i)hilosopher would surely be hanged, 
but as certainly blessed, for writing. 

If papa and mamma (honour be to them !) had not followed 
the fiiith of their fathers, and thought proper to send away their 
only beloved son (afterwards to be celebrated under the name of 
Titmarsh) into ten years’ banishment of infernal misery, tyi-anny, 


REMINISCENCES OF “TYIIT12 


()i? 1 


annoyjince ; to give over the fresh feelings of the lieart of the little 
]\Iichael Angelo to the diseipline of vulgar bullies, who, in order to 
lead tender young children to the Temide of Learning (as they do 
in the spelling-books), drove them on Avith clenched fists and low 
abuse ; if they fainted, revived them with a thump, or assailed them 
with a curse ; if they Avere misendde, consoled them Avith a brutal 
jeer — if, I say, my dear parents, instead of giving me the inestimable 
benefit of a ten years’ classical education, had kept me at home Avith 
my dear thirteen sisters, it is probable I should have liked this 
country of Attica, in sight of the blue shores of aa liich the j)resent 
pathetic letter is Avritten ; but I Avas made so miserable in youth 
by a classical education, that all connected Avith it is disagreeable 
in my eyes ; and I have the same recollection of Greek in youth 
that I have of castor-oil. 

So in coming in siglit of the promontor}^ of Sunium, where 
the Greek Muse, in an aAAful vision, (,*ame to me, and said in a 
patronising Avay, “ Why, my dear ” (she alAA^ays, the old spinster, 
adopts this high and mighty tone) — “ Why, my dear, are you not 
charmed to be in this famous neighbourhood, in this land of poets 
and heroes, of whose history your classical education ought to have 
made you a master '? if it did not, you have woefully neglected your 
opportunities, and your dear parents have Avasted their money in 
sending you to school.” I replied, “ Madam, your company in 
youth was made so laboriously disagreeable to me, that I can’t at 
present reconcile myself to you in age. I read your poets, but it 
Avas in fear and trembling ; and a cold SAveat is but an ill accompani- 
ment to poetry. I blundered through your histories ; but history 
is so dull (saving your presence) of herself, that Avhen the brutal 
dulness of a schoolmaster is supcradded to her oavii sIoav conversa- 
tion, the union becomes intolerable : hence I have not the slightest 
pleasure in renewing my ac(]uaintance Avith a lady who has been 
the source of so much bodily and mental discomfort to me.” To 
make a long story short, I am anxious to apologise for a want of 
enthusiasm in the classical line, and to excuse an ignorance which 
is of the most undeniable sort. 

This is an improper frame of mind for a person visiting the land 
of ^schylus and Euripides; add to Avhich, Ave have been abominably 
overcharged at the inn : and what are the blue hills of Attica, the 
silver calm basin of Piraeus, the heathery heights of Pentelicus, and 
yonder rocks croAvned by the Doric columns of the Parthenon, and 
the thin Ionic shafts of the Erechtheum, to a man who has had 
little rest, and is bitten all over by bugs 1 Was Alcibiades bitten 
by bugs, I wonder ; and did the brutes crawl over him as he lay 
in the rosy arms of Phrynel I Avished all night for Socrates’s 


622 JOURNEY FROM CORNHILL TO CAIRO 


hammock or basket, as it is described in the “ Clouds ” ; in which 
resting-place, no doubt, the abominable animals kept perforce clear 
of him. 

A Frencli man-of-war, lying in the silvery little harbour, sternly 
eyeing out of its stern portholes a saucy little English corvette 
beside, began playing sounding marches as a crowd of boats came 
paddling up to the steamer’s side to convey us travellers to shore. 
There were Russian schooners and Greek brigs lying in this little 
bay ; dumpy little windmills whirling round on the sunburnt heights 
round about it ; an improvised town of quays and marine taverns 
has sprung up on the shore ; a host of jingling barouches, more 
miserable than any to be seen even in Germany, were collected at 
the landing-place ; and the Greek drivers (how queer they looked in 
skullcaps, shabby Jackets with profuse embroidery of worsted, and 
endless petticoats of dirty calico !) began, in a generous ardour for 
securing passengers, to abuse each other’s horses and carriages in 
the regular London fashion. Satire could certainly hardly caricature 
the vehicle in which we were made to journey to Athens ; and it 
was only by thinking that, bad as they were, these coaches were 
much more comfortable contrivances than any Alcibiades or Cimon 
ever had, that we consoled ourselves along the road. It was flat 
for six miles along the plain to the city : and you see for the greater 
part of the way the purple mount on which the Acropolis rises, and 
the gleaming houses of the town spread beneath. Round this wide, 
yellow, barren plain, — a stunted district of olive-trees is almost the 
only vegetation visible — there rises, as it were, a sort of chorus of 
the most beautiful mountains ; the most elegant, gracious, and noble 
the eye ever looked on. These hills did not appear at all lofty or 
terrible, but superbly rich and aristocratic. The clouds were 
dancing round about them ; you could see their rosy-purple shadows 
sweeping round the clear serene summits of the hill. To call a hill 
aristocratic seems affected or absurd ; but the difference between 
these hills and the others is the difference between Newgate Prison 
and the Travellers’ Club, for instance ; both are buildings ; but the 
one stern, dark, and coarse ; the other rich, elegant, and festive. 
At least, so I thought. With such a stately palace as munificent 
Nature had built for these people, what could they be themselves 
but lordly, beautiful, brilliant, brave, and wise? We saw four 
Greeks on donkeys on the road (which is a dust-whirlwind where it 
is not a puddle) ; and other four were playing with a dirty pack of 
cards, at a barrack that English poets have christened the “ Half- 
way House.” Does external nature and beauty influence the soul 
to good ? You go about Warwickshire, and fancy that from merely 
being born and wandering in those sweet sunny plains and fresh 


LANDSCAPE 


62S 


woodlands Shakspeare must have drunk in a portion of that frank 
artless sense of beauty which lies about his works like a bloom or 
dew ; but a Coventry riband-maker, or a slang Leamington squire, 
are looking on those very same landscapes too, and what do they 
profit'? You theorise about the influence which the climate and 
appearance of Attica must have had in ennobling those who were 
born there : yonder dirty, swindling, ragged blackguards, lolling 
over greasy cards three hours before noon, quarrelling and shrieking, 
armed to the teeth and afraid to fight, are bred out of the same 
land which begot the philosophers and heroes. But the “ Half-way 
House ” is passed by this time, and behold ! we are in the capital 
of King Otho. 

I swear solemnly that I would rather have two hundred a year 
in Fleet Street, than be King of the Greeks, with Basileus written 
before my name round their beggarly coin ; with the bother of 
perpetual revolutions in my huge plaster-of-Paris palace, with no 
amusement but a drive in the afternoon over a wretched arid country, 
where roads are not made, with ambassadors (the deuce knows why, 
for what good can the English, or the French, or the Russian party 
get out of such a bankrupt alliance as this ?) perpetually pulling and 
tugging at me, away from honest Germany, where there is beer and 
aesthetic conversation, and operas at a small cost. The shabbiness 
of this place actually beats Ireland, and that is a strong word. The 
palace of the Basileus is an enormous edifice of plaster, in a square 
containing six houses, three donkeys, no roads, no fountains (except 
in the picture of the inn) ; backwards it seems to look straight to 
the mountain — on one side is a beggarly garden — the King goes 
out to drive (revolutions permitting) at five — some four-and-twenty 
blackguards saunter up to the huge sandhill of a terrace, as his 
Majesty passes by in a gilt barouche and an absurd fancy dress; 
the gilt barouche goes plunging down the sandhills ; the two dozen 
soldiers, who have been presenting arms, slouch off to their quarters ; 
the vast barrack of a palace remains entirely white, ghastly, and 
lonely; and, save the braying of a donkey now and then (which 
long-eared minstrels are more active and sonorous in Athens than 
in any place I know), all is entirely silent round Basileus’s palace. 
How could people who knew Leopold fancy he would be so “jolly 
green ” as to take such a berth ? It was only a gobemouche of a 
Bavarian that could ever have been induced to accept it. 

I beseech you to believe that it was not the bill and the bugs 
at the inn which induced the writer hereof to speak so slightingly 
of the residence of Basileus. These evils are now cured and for- 
gotten. This is written off the leaden flats and mounds which they 
call the Troad. It is stern justice alone which pronounces this 


624 JOURNEY FROM CORNHILL TO CAIRO 


excruciating sentence. It was a farce to make this place into a 
kingly ca])ital ; and I make no manner of doubt that King Otho, 
the very day he can get away imperceived, and get together the 
passage-money, will be off for dear old Deutschland, Fatherland, 
Beerland ! 

I have never seen a town in England which may be compared 
to this ; for though Herne Bay is a ruin now, money was once 
sjieiit upon it and houses built ; here, beyond a few score of mansions 
comfortably laid out, the toAvn is little better than a rickety agglo- 
meration of larger and smaller huts, tricked out here and there with 
the most absurd cracked ornaments and cheap attempts at elegance. 
But neatness is the elegance of poverty, and these people despise 
such a homely ornament. I have got a map with squares, fountains, 
theatres, public gardens and Places d’Othon marked out ; but they 
only exist in the paper capital — the wretched tumble-down wooden 
one boasts of none. 

One is obliged to come back to the old disagreeable comparison 
of Ireland. Athens may be about as wealthy a place as Carlow or 
Killarney — the streets swarm with idle crowds, the innumerable 
little lanes flow over with dirty little children, they are playing and 
puddling about in the dirt everywhere, with great big eyes, yellow 
faces, and the queerest little gowns and skullcaps. But in the 
outer man, the Greek has far the advantage of the Irishman : most 
of them are well and decently dressed (if flve-and-twenty yards of 
petticoat may not be called decent, what may?), they swagger to 
and fro with huge knives in their girdles. Almost all the men are 
handsome, but live hard, it is said, in order to decorate their backs 
with those fine clothes of theirs. I have seen but two or three 
handsome women, and these had the great drawback which is 
common to the race — I mean, a sallow, greasy, coarse complexion, 
at which it was not advisable to look too closely. 

And on this score I think we English may pride ourselves on 
l>ossessing an advantage (by zee, I mean the lovely ladies to whom 
this is addressed with the most respectful compliments) over the 
most classical country in the world. I don’t care for beauty which 
will only bear to be looked at from a distance, like a scene in a 
tlieatre. What is the most beautiful nose in the world, if it be 
covered with a skin of the texture and colour of coarse whitey-brown 
paper ; and if Nature has made it as slippery and shining as though 
it had been anointed with pomatum ? They may talk about beauty, 
but would you wear a flower that had been dipped in a grease-pot ? 
No ; give me a fresh, dewy, liealthy rose out of Somersetshire ; not 
one of those superb, tawdry, unwholesome exotics, which are only 
good to make poems about, Lord Byron wrote more cant of this 


GREEK ART 


625 


sort than any poet I know of. Think of “ the peasant girls with 
dark-blue eyes ” of the Rhine — the brown-faced, flat-nosed, thi(!k- 
lipped, dirty wenches ! Think of “ filling high a cup of Samian 
wine ; ” small beer is nectar compared to it, and Byron himself 
always drank gin. That man never wrote from his heart. He got 
up rapture and enthusiasm with an eye to the public ; but this is 
dangerous ground, even more dangerous than to look Athens full in 
the face, and say that your eyes are not dazzled by its beauty. 
The Great Public admires Greece and* Byron : the public knows 
best. Murray’s “Guide-book” calls the latter “our native bard.” 
Our native bard ! Mon Dieu ! He Sliakspeare’s, Milton’s, Keats’s, 
Scott’s native bard ! Well, woe be to the man who denies the public 
gods ! 

The truth is, then, that Athens is a disappointment ; and I am 
angry that it should be so. To a skilled antiquary, or an enthu- 
siastic Greek scholar, the feelings created by a sight of the place of 
course will be different ; but you who would be inspired by it must 
undergo a long preparation of reading, and possess, too, a particular 
feeling; both of which, I suspect, are uncommon in our busy 
commercial newspaper-reading country. Men only say they are 
enthusiastic about the Greek and Roman authors and history, 
because it is considered proper and respectable. And we know how 
gentlemen in Baker Street have editions of the classics handsomely 
bound in the library, and how they use them. Of course they don’t 
retire to read the newspaper ; it is to look over a favourite ode of 
Pindar, or to discuss an obscure passage in Athenseus ! Of coursf 
country magistrates and Members of Parliament are always studying 
Demosthenes and Cicero ; we know it from their continual habit of 
quoting the Latin grammar in Parliament. But it is agreed that 
the classics are respectable; therefore we are to be enthusiastic 
about them. Also let us admit that Byron is to be held up as “ our 
native bard.” 

I am not so entire a heathen as to be insensible to the beauty 
of those relics of Greek art, of which men much more learned and 
enthusiastic have written such piles of descriptions. I thought I 
could recognise the towering beauty of the prodigious columns of 
the Temple of Jupiter ; and admire the astonishing grace, severity, 
elegance, completeness of the Parthenon. The little Temple of 
Victory, with its fluted Corinthian shafts, blazed under the sun 
almost as fresh as it must have appeared to the eyes of its founders ; 
I saw nothing more charming and brilliant, more graceful, festive, 
and aristocratic than this sumptuous little building. The Roman 
remains which lie in the town below look like the works of bar- 
barians beside these perfect structures. They jar strangely on the 


626 JOURNEY FROM CORNHILL TO CAIRO 


eye, after it has been accustoming itself to perfect harmony and 
proportions. If, as the sclioolmaster tells us, the Greek writing is 
as complete as the Greek art ; if an ode of Pindar is as glittering 
and pure as the Temple of Victory ; or a discourse of Plato as 
polished and calm as yonder mystical portico of the Erechtheum ; 
what treasures of tlie senses and delights of the imagination have 
those lost to whom the Greek books are as good as sealed ! 

And yet one meets with very duU first-class men. Genius 
won’t transplant from one’ brain to another, or is ruined in the 
carriage, like fine burgundy. Sir Robert Peel and Sir John 
Hobhouse are both good scholars ; but their poetry in Parliament 
does not strike one as fine. Muzzle, the schoolmaster, who is 
bullying poor trembling little boys, was a fine scholar when he was 
a sizar, and a ruffian then and ever since. Where is the great 
poet, since the days of Milton, who has improved the natural off- 
shoots of his brain by grafting it from the Athenian tree ? 

I had a volume of Tennyson in my pocket, which somehow 
settled that question, and ended the querulous dispute between me 
and Conscience, under the shape of the neglected and irritated 
Greek muse, which had been going on ever since I had commenced 
my walk about Athens. The old spinster saw me wince at the 
idea of the author of Dora and Ulysses, and tried to follow up her 
advantage by further hints of time lost, and precious opportunities 
thrown away. “You might have written poems like them,” said 
she ; “or, no, not like them perhaps, but you might have done a 
neat prize poem, and pleased your papa and mamma. You might 
have translated Jack and Jill into Greek iambics, and been a 
credit to your college.” I turned tq3tily away from her. “ Madam,” 
says I, “because an eagle houses on a mountain, or soars to the 
sun, don’t you be angry with a sparrow that perches on a garret 
window, or twitters on a twig. Leave me to myself : look, my 
beak is not aquiline by any means.” 

And so, my dear friend, you who have been reading this last 
page in wonder, and who, instead of a description of Athens, have 
been accommodated with a lament on the part of the writer, that 
he was idle at school, and does not know Greek, excuse this 
momentary outbreak of egotistic despondency. To say truth, dear 
Jones, when one walks among the nests of the eagles, and sees the 
prodigious eggs they laid, a certain feeling of discomfiture must 
come over us smaller birds. You and I could not invent — it even 
stretches our minds painfully to try and comprehend part of the 
beauty of the Parthenon — ever so little of it,-^the beauty of a 
single column, — a fragment of a broken shaft lying under the 
astonishing blue sky there, in the midst of that unrivalled land- 


ATHENS 


6*27 


scape. There may be grander aspects of nature, but none more 
deliciously beautiful. The hills rise in perfect harmony, and fall 
in the most exquisite cadences — the sea seems brighter, the islands 
more purple, the clouds more light and rosy than elsewhere. As 
you look up through the open roof, you are almost oppressed by 
the serene depth of the blue overhead. Look even at the fragments 
of the marble, how soft and pure it is, glittering and white like 
fresh snow ! “I was all beautiful,” it seems to say : “ even the 
hidden parts of me were spotless, precious, and fair”— and so, 
musing over this wonderful scene, perhaps I get some feeble glimpse 
or idea of that ancient Greek spirit which peopled it with sublime 
races of heroes and gods ; * and which I never could get out of a 
Greek book, — no, not though Muzzle flung it at my head. 

* Saint Paul speaking from the Areopagus, and rebuking these superstitions 
away, yet speaks tenderly to the people before him, whose devotions he had 
marked ; quotes their poets, to bring them to think of the God unknown, whom 
they had ignorantly worshipped J and says, that the times of this ignorance, 
God winked at, but that now it was time to repent. No rebuke can surely be 
more gentle than this delivered by the upright Apostle. 


CHAPTER VI 


SMYRNA— FIRST GLIMPSES OF THE EAST 

I AM glad that the Turkish part of Athens was extinct, so that 
I should not be balked of the pleasure of entering an Eastern 
town by an introduction to any garbled or incomplete s{)ecimen 
of one. Smyrna seems to me the most Eastern of all I have seen ; 
as Calais will probably remain to the Englishman tlie most French 
town in the world, Tlie jack-boots of the postillions don’t seem so 
huge elsewhere, or the tight stockings of the maid-servants so Gallic. 
The churches and the ramparts, and the little soldiers on them, 
remain for ever impressed upon your memory ; from which larger 
temples and buildings, and whole armies have subsequently disap- 
]ieared : and the first words of actual French heard spoken, and 
the first dinner at “ Quillacq’s,” remain after twenty years as clear 
as on the first day. Dear Jones, can’t you remember the exact 
smack of the white hermitage, and the toothless old fellow singing 
“ Largo al factotum ” 'i 

The first day in the East is like that. After that there is 
nothing. The wonder is gone, and the thrill of that delightful 
shock, which so seldom touches the nerves of plain men of the 
world, tliougli they seek for it everywhere. One such looked out 
at Smyrna from our steamer, and yawned without the least excite- 
ment, and did not betray the slightest emotion, as boats with real 
Turks on board came up to the ship. There lay the town wdth 
minarets and cypresses, domes and castles ; great guns Avere firing 
off, and the blood-red flag of the Sultan flaring over the fort ever 
since sunrise ; Avoods and mountains came doAvn to the gulf’s edge, 
and as you looked at tlieni Avith the telescope, there peeped out of 
tlie general mass a score of pleasant episodes of Eastern life — tliere 
Avere cottages Avith quaint roofs ; silent cool kiosks, where the chief 
of the eunuchs brings doAvn the ladies of the harem, I saAv Hassan, 
tlie fisherman, getting his nets ; and Ali Baba going off with his 
donkey to the great forest for Avood. Smith looked at these wonders 
(piite unmoved ; and I Avas surprised at his apathy ; but he had 
been at Smyrna liefore. A man only sees the miracle once ; though 
you yearn over it ever so, it won’t come again. I saw nothing of 


THE SMYRNA BAZAAR 


629 

Ali Balia and Hassan the next time we came to Smyrna, and had 
some doubts (recollecting the badness of the inn) about landing at 
all. A person who wishes to understand France or the East should 
come in a yacht to Calais or Smyrna, land for two hours, and never 
afterwards go back again. 

But those two hours are beyond measure delightful. Some of 
us were querulous up to that time, and doubted of the wisdom of 
making the voyage. Lisbon, we owned, was a failure; Athens a 
dead failure ; Malta very well, but not worth the trouble and sea- 
sickness : in fact, Baden-Baden or Devonshire would be a better 
move than this ; when Smyrna came, and rebuked all mutinous 
Cockneys into silence. Some men may read this who are in want 
of a sensation. If they love the odd and picturesque, if they loved 
the “ Arabian Nights ” in their youth, let them book themselves 
on board one of the Peninsular and Oriental vessels, and try one 
dip into Constantinople or Smyrna. Walk into the bazaar, and 
the East is unveiled to you ; how often and often have you tried 
to fancy this, lying out on a summer holiday at school ! It is 
wonderful, too, how like it is : you may imagine that you have been 
in the jilace before, you seem to know it so well ! 

The beauty of that poetry is, to me, that it was never too hand- 
some ; there is no fatigue of sublimity about it. Shacabac and the 
little Barber play as great a part in it as the heroes ; there are no 
uncomfortable sensations of terror ; you may be familiar with the 
great Afreet, who was going to execute the travellers for killing his 
son with a date-stone. Morgiana, when she kills the forty robbers 
with boiling oil, does not seem to hurt them in the least; and 
though King Schahriar makes a practice of cutting off his wives’ 
heads, yet you fancy they have got them on again in some of the 
back rooms of the palace, where they are dancing and playing on 
dulcimers. How fresh, easy, good-natured, is all this ! How de- 
lightful is that notion of the pleasant Eastern people about knowledge, 
where the height of science is made to consist in the answering of 
riddles ! and all the mathematicians and magicians bring their great 
beards to bear on a conundrum ! 

When I got into the bazaar among this race, somehow I felt as 
if they were all friends. There sat the merchants in their little 
shops, quiet and solemn, but with friendly looks. There was no 
smoking, it was the Ramazan ; no eating, the fish and meat fizzing 
in the enormous pots of the cook-shops are oidy for the Christians. 
The children abounded ; the law is not so stringent upon them, and 
many wandering merchants were there selling figs (in the name of 
the Prophet, doubtless) for their benefit, and elbowing onwards with 
baskets of grapes and cucumbers. Countrymen passed bristling 


t)30 JOURNEY FROM CORNHILL TO CAIRO 


over with arms, each with a huge bellyful of pistols and daggers in 
his girdle ; fierce, but not the least dangerous. Wild swarthy Arabs, 
who had come in with the caravans, walked solemnly about, very 
different in look and demeanour from the sleek inhabitants of the 
town. Greeks and Jews squatted and smoked, their shops tended 
by sallow-faced boys, with large eyes, who smiled and welcomed 
you in ; negroes bustled about in gaudy colours ; and women, with 
black nose-bags and shuffling yellow slippers, chattered and bargained 
at the doors of the little shops. There was the rope quarter and 
the sweetmeat quarter, and the pipe bazaar and the arm bazaar, 
and the little turned-up shoe quarter, and the shops where ready- 
made jackets and pelisses were swinging, and the region where, 
under the ragged awning, regiments of tailors were at work. The 
sun peeps through these awnings of mat or canvas, which are hung 
over the narrow lanes of the bazaar, and ornaments them with a 
thousand freaks of light and shadow. Cogia Hassan Alhabbal’s shop 
is in a blaze of light; while his neighbour, the barber and coffee- 
house keeper, has his premises, his low seats and narghiles, his queer 
pots and basins, in the sliade. The cobblers are always good- 
natured; there was one who, I am sure, has been revealed to me 
in my dreams, in a dirty old green turban, with a pleasant wrinkled 
face like an apple, twinkling his little grey eyes as he held them up 
to talk to the gossips, and smiling under a delightful old grey beard, 
which did the heart good to see. You divine the conversation 
between him and the cucumber-man, as the Sultan used to under- 
stand the language of birds. Are any of those cucumbers stuffed 
with pearls, and is tliat Ainienian with the black square turban 
Haroun Alraschid in disguise, standing yonder by the fountain 
Avhere the children are drinking — the gleaming marble fountain, 
chequered all over with light and shadow, and engraved with 
delicate arabesques and sentences from tlie Koran? 

But the greatest sensation of all is when the camels come. 
Whole strings of real camels, better even than in the procession of 
Blue Beard, with soft rolling eyes and bended necks, swaying from 
one side of the bazaar to the other to and fro, and treading gingerly 
with their great feet. 0 you fairy dreams of boyhood ! 0 you 

sweet meditations of half-holidays, here you are realised for half-an- 
hour ! The genius which presides over youth led us to do a good 
action that day. There was a man sitting in an open room, orna- 
mented with fine long-tailed sentences of the Koran : some in red, 
some in blue ; some written diagonally over the paper ; some so 
shaped as to represent ships, dragons, or mysterious animals. The 
man squatted on a carpet in the middle of this room, with folded 
arms, waggling his head to and fro, swaying about, and singing 


A SCHOOLBOY BASTINADOED 


631 


through his nose choice phrases from the sacred work. But from 
the room above came a clear noise of many little shouting voices, 
much more musical than that of Naso in the matted parlour, and 
the guide told us it was a school, so we Avent upstairs to look. 

I declare, on my conscience, the master was in the act of 
bastinadoing a little mulatto boy ; his feet were in a bar, and the 
brute was laying on with a cane ; so we Avitnessed the howling of 
the poor boy, and the confusion of the brute who Avas administering 
the correction. The other children Avere made to shout, I believe, 
to droAvn the noise of their little comrade’s howling ; but the 
punishment Avas instantly discontinued as our hats came up over 
the stair-trap, and the boy cast loose, and the bamboo huddled into 
a corner, and the schoolmaster stood before us abashed. All the 
small scholars in red caps, and the little girls in gaudy handker- 
chiefs, turned their big wondering dark eyes towards us; and the 
caning Avas over for that time, let us trust. I don’t envy some 
schoolmasters in a future state. I pity that poor little blubbering 
Mahometan : he will never be able to relish the “ Arabian Nights ” 
in the original, all his life long. 

From this scene Ave rushed off someAvhat discomposed to make 
a breakfast off red mullets and grapes, melons, pomegranates, and 
Smyrna wine, at a dirty little comfortable inn, to Avhich Ave were 
recommended : and from the windoAvs of Avhich Ave had a fine 
cheerful view of the gulf and its busy craft, and the loungers and 
merchants along the shore. There were camels unloading at one 
Avharf, and piles of melons much bigger than the Gibraltar cannon- 
balls at another. It was the fig-season, and Ave passed through 
several alleys encumbered Avith long rows of fig-dressers, children 
and women for the most part, Avho Avere packing the fruit diligently 
into drums, dipping them in salt-AA^ater first, and spreading them 
neatly over Avith leaves ; while the figs and leaves are drying, large 
white Avorms craAvl out of them, and sAvarm over the decks of the 
sliips Avhich carry them to Europe and to England, where small 
children eat them Avith pleasure — I mean the figs, not the Avorms — 
and where they are still served at Avine-parties at the Universities. 
When fresh they are not better than elsewhere ; but the melons 
are of admirable flavour, and so large, that Cinderella might almost 
be accommodated Avith a coach made of a big one, without any very 
great distension of its original proportions. 

Our guide, an accomplished swindler, demanded tAvo dollars 
as the fee for entering the mosque, Avhich others of our party subse- 
quently saAV for sixpence, so Ave did not care to examine that place 
of worship. But there Avere other cheaper sights, which were to 
the full as picturesque, for Avhich there Avas no call to pay money, 


G32 from CORNHILL to CAIRO 


or, indeed, for a day, scarcely to move at all. I doubt whether a 
man wlio would smoke his pipe on a bazaar counter all day, and 
let the city flow by him, would not be almost as well employed as 
the most active curiosity-hunter. 

To be sure he would not see the women. Those in the bazaar 
were shabby people for the most part, whose black masks nobody 
would feel a curiosity to remove. You could see no more of their 
figures than if they had been stufted in bolsters ; and even their 
feet were brought to a general splay uniformity by the double yellow 
slippers which the wives of true believers wear. But it is in the 
Greek and Armenian quarters, and among those poor Christians 
who were pulling figs, that you see the beauties ; and a man of a 
generous disposition may lose his heart half-a-dozen times a day in 
Smyrna. There was the pretty maid at work at a tambour-frame 
in an open porch, with an old duenna spinning by her side, and 
a goat tied up to the railings of the little court-garden ; there was 
the nymph who came dovm the stair with the pitcher on her head, 
and gazed with great calm eyes, as large and stately as Juno’s; 
there was the gentle mother, bending over a queer cradle, in which 
lay a small crying bundle of infancy. All these three charmers 
were seen in a single street in the Armenian quarter, where the 
house-doors are all open, and the women of the families sit under 
the arches in the court. There was the fig-girl, beautiful beyond 
all others, with an immense coil of deep black hair twisted round 
a head of which Raphael was worthy to draw the outline and 
Titian to paint the colour. I wonder the Sultan has not swept 
her off, or that the Persian merchants, who come with silks and 
sweetmeats, have not kidnapped her for the Shah of Tehran. 

We went to see the Persian merchants at their khan, and 
purchased some silks there from a swarthy black-bearded man, 
with a conical cap of lamb’swool. Is it not hard to think that 
silks bought of a man in a lamb’swool cap, in a caravanserai, 
brought hither on the backs of camels, should have been manu- 
factured after all at Lyons'? Others of our party bought carpets, 
for which the town is famous ; and there was one who absolutely 
laid in a stock of real Smyrna figs ; and purchased three or four 
real Smyrna sponges for his carriage ; so strong was his passion for 
the genuine article. 

I wonder that no painter has given us familiar views of the 
East : not processions, grand sultans, or magnificent landscapes ; 
but faitliful transcripts of everyday Oriental life, such as each street 
will sui)ply to him. Tlie camels aftbrd endless motives, couched 
in the market-places, lying by thousands in tlie camel-square, snort- 
ing and bubbling after their manner, the sun blazing down on their 


PERSIAN MERCHANTS 


633 


backs, their slaves and keepers lying behind them in the shade : and 
the Caravan Bridge, above all, would afford a painter subjects for a 
dozen of pictures. Over this Roman arch, which crosses the Meles 
river, all the caravans pass on their entrance to the town. On one 
side, as we sat and looked at it, was a great row of plane-trees ; on 
the opposite bank, a deep wood of tall cypresses — in the midst of 
which rose up innumerable grey tombs, surmounted with the turbans 
of the defunct believers. Beside the stream, the view was less 
gloomy. There was under the plane-trees a little coffee-house, 
shaded by a trellis-work, covered over with a vine, and ornamented 
with many rows of shining pots and water-pipes, for which there 
was no use at noon-day now, in the time of Ramazan. Hard by the 
coffee-house was a garden and a bubbling inarble fountain, and over 
the stream was a broken summer-house, to which amateurs may 
ascend for the purpose of examining the river ; and all round the 
plane-trees plenty of stools for those who were inclined to sit and 
drink sweet thick coffee, or cool lemonade made of fresh green 
citrons. The master of the house, dressed in a white turban and 
light blue pelisse, lolled under the coffee-house awning ; the slave 
in white with a crimson-striped jacket, his face as black as ebony, 
brought us pipes and lemonade again, and returned to his station 
at the coffee-house, where he curled his black legs together, and 
began singing out of his flat nose to the thrumming of a long guitar 
with wire strings. The instrument was not bigger than a soup- 
ladle, with a long straight handle, but its music pleased the per- 
former ; for his eyes rolled shining about, and his head wagged, 
and he grinned with an innocent intensity of enjoyment that did 
one good to look at. And there was a friend to share his pleasure : 
a Turk dressed in scarlet, and covered all over with daggers and 
pistols, sat leaning forward on his little stool, rocking about, and 
grinning quite as eagerly as the black minstrel. As he sang and 
we listened, figures of women bearing pitchers went passing over 
the Roman bridge, which we saw between tlie large trunks of the 
planes ; or grey forms of camels were seen stalking across it, the 
string preceded by the little donkey, who is always here their 
long-eared conductor. 

These are very humble incidents of travel. Wherever the 
steamboat touches the shore adventure retreats into the interior, 
and what is called romance vanishes. It won’t bear the vulgar 
gaze ; or rather the light of common day puts it out, and it is only 
in the dark that it shines at all. There is no cursing and insulting 
of Giaours now. If a Cockney looks or behaves in a particularly 
ridiculous way, the little Turks come out and laugh at him. A 
Londoner is no longer a spittoon for true believers ; and now that 


634 JOURNEY. FROM CORNHILL TO CAIRO 


dark Hassau sits in his divan and drinks champagne, and Selim 
has a French watch, and Zuleika perhaps takes Morison’s pills, 
Byronism becomes absurd instead of sublime, and is only a foolish 
expression of Cockney wonder. They still occasionally beat a man 
for going into a mosque, but this is almost the only sign of ferocious 
vitality left in the Turk of the Mediterranean coast, and strangers 
may enter scores of mosques without molestation. The paddle- 
wheel is the great conqueror. Wherever the captain cries “ Stop 
her ! ” Civilisation stops, and lands in the ship’s boat, and makes 
a permanent acquaintance with the savages on shore. Whole hosts 
of crusaders have passed and died, and butchered here in vain. 
But to manufacture European iron into pikes and helmets was a 
waste of metal : in the shape of piston-rods and furnace-pokers it is 
irresistible ; and I think an allegory might be made showing how 
much stronger commerce is than chivalry, and finishing with a 
grand image of Mahomet’s crescent being extinguished in Fulton’s 
boiler. 

This I thought was the moral of the day’s sights and adventures. 
We pulled off to the steamer in the afternoon — the Inbat blowing 
fresh, and setting all the craft in the gulf dancing over its blue 
waters. We were presently under way again, the captain ordering 
his engines to work only at half-power, so that a French steamer 
which was quitting Smyrna at the same time might come up with 
us, and fancy she could beat the irresistible Tagus. Vain hope ! 
Just as the Frenchman neared us, the Tagus shot out like an 
arrow, and the discomfited Frenchman went behind. Though we 
all relished the joke exceedingly, there was a French gentleman on 
board who did not seem to be by any means tickled with it ; but 
he had received papers at Smyrna, containing news of Marshal 
Bugeaud’s victory at Isly, and had this land victory to set against 
our harmless little triumph at sea. 

That night we rounded the island of Mitylene : and the next 
day the coast of Troy was in sight, and the tomb of Achilles — a 
dismal-looking mound that rises in a low dreary barren shore — less 
lively and not more picturesque than the Scheldt or the mouth 
of the Thames. Then we passed Tenedos and the forts and town 
at the mouth of the Dardanelles. The weather was not too hot, 
the water as smooth as at Putney, and everybody happy and excited 
at the thought of seeing Constantinople to-morrow. We had music 
on board all the way from Smyrna. A German commis-voyageur, 
with a guitar, who had passed unnoticed until that time, produced 
his instrument about mid-day, and began to whistle waltzes. He 
whistled so divinely that the ladies left their cabins, and men laid 
down their books. He whistled a polka so bewitchingly that two 


A GERMAN WHISTLER 


635 


young Oxforcl men began whirling round the deck, and performed 
that popular dance with much agility until they sank down tired. 
He still continued an unabated whistling, and as nobody would 
dance, pulled off his coat, produced a pair of castanets, and whistling 
a mazurka, performed it with tremendous agility. His whistling 
made everybody gay and happy — made those acquainted who had 
not spoken before, and inspired such a feeling of hilarity in the ship, 
that that night, as we floated over the Sea of Marmora, a general 
vote was expressed for broiled bones and a regular supper-party. 
Punch was brewed, and speeches were made, and, after a lapse 
of fifteen years, I heard the “ Old English Gentleman ” and “ Bright 
Chanticleer proclaims the Morn,” sung in such style that you would 
almost fancy the Proctors must hear, and send us all home. 


CHAPTER VII 


CONSTANTINOPLE 

W HEN we rose at sunrise to see the famous entry to 
Constantinople, we found, in the place of the city and 
the sun, a bright white fog, which hid both from sight, 
and which only disappeared as the vessel advanced towards the 
Golden Horn. There the fog cleared olf as it were by Hakes, and 
as you see gauze curtains lifted away, one by one, before a great 
fairy scene at the theatre, Tliis will give idea enough of the fog ; 
tlie difficulty is to describe the scene afterwards, which was in 
truth the great fairy scene, than which it is impossible to conceive 
anytliing more brilliant and magnificent. I can’t go to any more 
romantic place than Drury Lane to draw my similes from — Drury 
Lane, such as we used to see it in our youth, when to our sight the 
grand last pictures of the melodrama or pantomime were as- magnifi- 
cent as any objects of nature we have seen with maturer eyes. 
Well, the view of Constantinople is as fine as any of Stanfield’s 
best theatrical pictures, seen at the best period of youth, when 
fancy had all the bloom on her— when all the heroines who danced 
l)efore the scene api)eared as ravishing beauties, when there shone 
an unearthly splendour about Baker and Diddear — and the sound 
of the bugles and fiddles, and the cheerful clang of the cymbals, as 
the scene unrolled, and the gorgeous procession meandered trium- 
I)hantly through it — caused a thrill of pleasure, and awakened an 
innocent fulness of sensual enjoyment that is only given to boys. 

The above sentence contains the following propositions : — The 
enjoyments of boyish fancy are the most intense and delicious iu 
the world. Stanfield’s panorama used to be the realisation of the 
most intense youthful fancy. I i)uzzle my brains and find no better 
likeness for the place. The view of Constantinople resembles the 
7ie 2)lus idWa of a Stanfield diorama, with a glorious accompaniment 
of music, spangled houris, warriors, and winding processions, feasting 
the eyes and the soul with light, sjdendour, and harmony. If you 
were never in this way during your youth ravished at the play- 
house, of course the whole comparison is useless : and you have 
no idea, from this description, of the effect which Constantinople 


STREET VIEW AT CONSTANTINOPLE. 








CONSTANTINOPLE 


637 


produces on the mind. But if you were never affected by a theatre, 
no words can work upon your fancy, and typographical attempts to 
move it are of no use. For, suppose we combine mosque, minaret, 
gold, cypress, water, blue, caiques, seventy-four, Galata, Tophana, 
Ramazan, Backallum, and so forth, together, in ever so many ways, 
your imagination will never be able to depict a city out of them. 
Or, suppose I say the Mosque of St. Sophia is four hundred and 
seventy-three feet in height, measuring from the middle nail of the 
gilt crescent surmounting the dome to the ring in the centre stone ; 
the circle of the dome is one hundred and twenty-three feet in 
diameter, the windows ninety-seven in number — and all this may 
be true, for anything I know to the contrary : yet who is to get an 
idea of St. Sophia from dates, proper names, and calculations with 
a measuring-line 1 It can’t be done by giving the age and measure- 
ment of all the buildings along the river, the names of all the 
boatmen who ])ly on it. Has your fancy, which pooh-poohs a 
simile, foith enough to build a city with a foot-rule '? Enough said 
about descriptions and similes (though whenever I am uncertain of 
one I am naturally most anxious to fight for it) : it is a scene not 
perhaps sublime, but charming, magnificent, and cheerful beyond 
any I have ever seen — the most superb combination of city and 
gardens, domes and shipping, hills and water, with the healthiest 
breeze blowing over it, and above it the brightest and most cheerful 
sky. 

It is proper, they say, to be disappointed on entering the town, 
or any of the various quarters of it, because the houses are not so 
magnificent on inspection and seen singly as they are when beheld 
en masse from the waters. But why form expectations so lofty ? 
If you see a group of peasants picturesquely dis})osed at a fair, you 
don’t supiwse that they are all faultless beauties, or that the men’s 
coats have no -rags, and the women’s gowns are made of silk and 
velvet : the wild ugliness of the interior of Constantinople or Pera 
has a charm of its own, greatly more amusing than rows of red 
l)ricks or drab stones, however symmetrical. With brick or stone 
they could never form those fantastic ornaments, railings, balconies, 
roofs, galleries, which jut in and out of the rugged houses of the 
city. As we went from Galata to Pera up a steep hill, which new- 
comers ascend with some difficulty, but which a porter, with a 
couple of hundredweight on his back, paces up without turning a 
hair, I thought the wooden houses far from being disagreeable 
objects, sights quite as surprising and striking as the grand one we 
had just left. 

I do not know how the custom-house of his Highness is made 
to be a i)rofitable speculation. As I left the ship, a man pulled 


638 JOURNEY FROM CORNHILL TO CAIRO 


after iiiy boat, and asked for backsheesh, which was given him to 
the amount of about twopence. He was a custom-house officer, 
but I doubt whether this sum which he levied ever went to the 
revenue. 

I can fancy the scene about the quays somewhat to resemble 
the river of London in olden times, before coal-smoke had darkened 
the whole city with soot, and when, according to the old writers, 
tliere really wa.s bright weather. The fleets of caiques bustling 
along the shore, or scudding over the blue water, are beautiful to 
look at : in Hollar’s print London river is so studded over with 
wherry-boats, which bridges and steamers have since destroyed. 
Here the caique is still in full perfection : there are thirty thousand 
boats of the kind plying between the cities : every boat is neat, and 
trimly carved and painted ; and I scarcely saw a man pulling in 
one of them that was not a fine specimen of his race, brawny and 
brown, with an open chest and a handsome face. They wear a 
thin shirt of exceedingly light cotton, which leaves their fine brown 
limbs full play ; and with a purple sea for a background, every 
one of these dashing boats forms a brilliant and glittering picture. 
Passengers squat in the inside of the boat ; so that as it passes you 
see little more than the heads of the true believers, with their red 
fez and blue tassel, and that placid gravity of expression which the 
sucking of a tobacco-pipe is sure to give to a man. 

The Bosphorus is enlivened by a multiplicity of other kinds 
of craft. There are the dirty men-of-war’s boats of the Russians, 
with unwa.shed mangy crews ; the great ferry - boats carrying 
hundreds of passengers to the villages ; the melon-boats piled up 
with enormous golden fruit ; his Excellency the Pasha’s boat, 
with twelve men bending to their oars ; and his Highness’s own 
caique, with a head like a serpent, and eight-and-twenty tugging 
oarsmen, that goes shooting by amidst the thundering of the 
cannon. Ships and steamers, with black sides and flaunting 
colours, are moored everywhere, sliowing their flags, Russian and 
English, Austrian, American, and Greek ; and along the quays 
country ships from the Black Sea or the islands, with high carved 
poops and bows, such as you see in the pictures of the shipping of 
the seventeenth century. The vast groves and towers, domes and 
quays, tall minarets and spired spreading mosques of the . three 
cities, rise all around in endless magnificence and variety, and render 
this water-street a scene of such delightful liveliness and beauty, 
that one never tires of looking at it. I lost a great number of the 
sights in and round Constantinople through the beauty of this 
admirable scene : but what are sights after all 1 and isn’t that the 
best sight which makes you most happy ? 


CONSTANTINOPLE 


639 

We were lodged at Pera at Misseri’s Hotel, the host of which 
has been made famous ere this time by the excellent book 
“ Eothen,” a work for which all the passengers on board our ship 
had been battling, and which had charmed all — from our great 
statesman, our polished lawyer, our young Oxonian, who sighed 
over certain passages that he feared were wicked, down to the 
writer of this, who, after perusing it with delight, laid it down with 
wonder, exclaiming, “ Aut Diabolus aut ” — a book which has since 
(greatest miracle of all) excited a feeling of warmth and admiration 
in the bosom of the god-like, impartial, stony Athenaeum. Misseri, 
the faithful and chivalrous Tartar, is transformed into the most 
quiet and gentlemanlike of landlords, a great deal more gentleman- 
like in manner and appearance than most of us who sat at his table, 
and smoked coOl pipes on his house-top, as we looked over the hill 
and the Russian palace to the water, and the Seraglio gardens 
shining in the blue. We confronted Misseri, “Eothen” in hand, 
and found, on examining him, that it ivas “aut Diabolus aut 
amicus ’’—but the name is a secret ; I will never breathe it, though 
I am dying to tell it. 

The last good description of a Turkish bath, I think, was 
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu’s — which voluptuous picture must 
have been painted at least a hundred and thirty years ago ; so that 
another sketch may be attempted by a humbler artist in a different 
manner. The Turkish bath is certainly a novel sensation to an 
Englishman, and may be set down as a most queer and surprising 
event of his life. I made the valet-de-place or dragoman (it is 
rather a fine thing to have a dragoman in one’s service) conduct me 
forthwith to the best appointed hummums in the neighbourhood ; 
and we walked to a house at Tophana, and into a spacious hall 
lighted from above, which is the cooling-room of the bath. 

The spacious hall has a large fountain in the midst, a painted 
gallery running round it; and many ropes stretched from one 
gallery to another, ornamented with profuse draperies of towels 
and blue cloths, for the use of the frequenters of the place. All 
round the room and the galleries were matted inclosures, fitted with 
numerous neat beds and cushions for reposing on, where lay a dozen 
of true believers smoking, or sleeping, or in the happy half-dozing 
state. I was led up to one of these beds, to rather a retired corner, 
in consideration of my modesty ; and to the next bed presently came 
a dancing dervish, who forthwith began to prepare for the bath. 

When the dancing dervish had taken -off his yellow sugar-loaf 
cap, his gown, shawl, &c., he was arrayed in two large blue cloths ; 
a white one being thrown over his shoulders, and another in the 
shape of a turban plaited neatly round his head • the garments of 


640 JOURNEY FROM CORNHILL TO CAIRO 


which he divested himself were folded np in another linen, and 
neatly put by. I beg leave to state I was treated in precisely the 
same manner as the dancing dervish. 

The reverend gentleman then put on a pair of wooden pattens, 
which elevated him about six inches from the ground ; and walked 
down the stairs, and paddled across the moist marble floor of the 
hall, and in at a little door, by tlie which also Titmarsh entered. 
But I had none of the professional agility of the dancing dervish ; 
I staggered about very ludicrously upon the high wooden i)attens ; 
and should have been down on my nose several times, had not the 
dragoman and the master of the bath supported me down the stairs 
and across the hall. Dressed in three large cotton napkins, with 
a white turban round my head, I thought of Pall Mall with a sort 
of despair. I passed tlie little door, it was closed behind me — I 
was in the dark — I couldn’t speak the language — in a white turban. 
Mon Dieu ! what was going to happen 1 

The dark room was the tepidarium, a moist oozing arched den, 
with a light faintly streaming from an orifice in the domed ceiling. 
Yells of frantic laughter and song came booming and clanging 
through the echoing arches, the doors clapped to with loud rever- 
berations. It was the laughter of the followers of Mahound, 
rollicking and taking their pleasure in the ])ublic bath. I could 
not go into that place : I swore I would not ; they promised me a 
private room, and the dragoman left me. My agony at parting 
from that Christian cannot be described. 

When you get into the sudarium, or hot room, your first sensa- 
tions only occur about half a minute after entrance, when you feel 
that you are choking. I found myself in that state, seated on a 
marble slab ; the bath man was gone ; he had taken away the 
cotton turban and shoulder shawl : I saw I was in a narrow room 
of marble, with a vaulted roof, and a fountain of warm and cold 
water ; the atmosphere was in a steam, the choking sensation went 
off", and I felt a sort of pleasure presently in a soft boiling simmer, 
which, no doubt, potatoes feel when they are steaming. You are 
left in this state for about ten minutes : it is warm certainly, but 
odd and pleasant, and disposes the mind to reverie. 

But let any delicate mind in Baker Street fancy my horror 
when, on looking up out of this reverie, I saw a great brovm wretch 
extended before me, only half dressed, standing on pattens, and 
exaggerated by them and the steam until he looked like an ogre, 
grinning in the most horrible way, and waving his arm, on which 
was a horsehair glove. He spoke, in his unknown nasal jargon, 
words which echoed through the arched room ; his eyes seemed 
astonishingly large and bright, his ears stuck out, and his head was 


A TURKISH BATH 641 

all shaved, except a bristling top-knot, which gave it a demoniac 
fierceness. 

This description, I feel, is growing too frightful; ladies who 
read it will be going into hysterics, or saying, “Well, upon my 
word, this is the most singular, the most extraordinary kind of 

language. Jane, my love, you will not read that odious book ” 

and so I will be brief. This grinning man belabours the patient 
violently with the horse-brush. When he has completed the horse- 
hair part, and you lie expiring under a squirting fountain of warm 
water, and fancying all is done, he reappears with a large brass 
basin, containing a quantity of lather, in the midst of which is 
something like old Miss MacWhirter’s flaxen wig that she is so 
proud of, and that we have all laughed at. Just as you are going 
to remonstrate, the thing like the wig i^ dashed into your face and 
eyes, covered over with soap, and for five minutes you are drowned 
in lather : you can’t see, the suds are frothing over your eyeballs ; 
you can’t hear, the soap is whizzing into your ears ; can’t gasp for 
breath, Miss MacWhirter’s wig is down your throat with half a 
pailful of suds in an instant — you are all soap. Wicked children 
in former days have jeered you, exclaiming, “ How are you off for 
soap ^ ” You little knew what saponacity was till you entered a 
Turkish bath. 

When the whole operation is concluded, you are led — with what 
heartfelt joy I need not say — softly back to the cooling-room, having 
been robed in shawls and turbans as before. You are laid gently 
on the reposing bed ; somebody brings a narghile, which tastes as 
tobacco must taste in Mahomet’s Paradise; a cool sweet dreamy 
languor takes possession of the purified frame ; and half-an-hour of 
such delicious laziness is spent over the pipe as is unknown in 
Europe, where vulgar prejudice has most shamefully maligned 
indolence — calls it foul names, such as the father of all evil, and 
the like ; in fact, does not know how to educate idleness as those 
honest Turks do, and the fruit which, when properly cultivated, 
it bears. 

The after-bath state is the most delightful condition of laziness 
I ever knew, and I tried it wherever we went afterwards on our 
little tour. At Smyrna the whole business was much inferior to 
the method employed in the capital. At Cairo, after the soap, you 
are plunged into a sort of stone coffin, full of water which is all but 
boiling. This has its charms ; but I could not relish the Egyptian 
shampooing. A hideous old blind man (but very dexterous in his 
art) tried to break my baek and dislocate my shoulders, but I could 
not see the pleasure of the practice ; and another fellow began 
tickling the soles of my feet, but I rewarded him with a kick that 
5 2 s 


642 JOURNEY FROM CORNHILL TO CAIRO 


sent him off the bench. The pure idleness is the best, and I shall 
never enjoy such in Eiu'ope again. 

Victor Hugo, in his famous travels on the Rhine, visiting 
Cologne, gives a learned account of what he didnH see there. I 
have a remarkable catalogue of similar objects at Constantinople. 
I didn’t see the dancing dervishes, it was Ramazan ; nor the howling 
dervishes at Scutari, it was Ramazan ; nor the interior of St. 
Sophia, nor the women’s apartment of the Seraglio, nor the fashion- 
able promenade at the Sweet Waters, always because it was 
Ramazan ; during which period the dervishes dance and howl but 
rarely, their legs and lungs being unequal to much exertion during 
a fast of fifteen hours. On account of the same holy season, the 
Royal palaces and mosques are shut; and though the Valley of the 
Sweet Waters is there, no one goes to walk ; the people remaining 
asleep all day, and passing the night in feasting and carousing. 
The minarets are illuminated at this season; even the humblest 
mosque at Jerusalem, or Jaffa, mounted a few circles of dingy 
lamps ; those of the capital were handsomely lighted with many 
festoons of lamps, which had a fine effect from the water. I need 
not mention other and constant illuminations of the city, which 
innumerable travellers have described — I mean the fires. There 
were three in Pera during our eight days’ stay there ; but they did 
not last long enough to bring the Sultan out of bed to come and 
lend his aid. Mr. Hobhouse (quoted in the “ Guide-book ”) says, 
if a fire lasts an hour, the Sultan is bound to attend it in person ; 
and that people having petitions to present, have often set houses 
on fire for the purpose of forcing out this Royal trump. The 
Sultan can’t lead a very “jolly life,” if this rule be universal. 
Fancy his Highness, in the midst of his moon-faced beauties, 
handkerchief in hand, and obliged to tie it round his face, and 
go out of his warm harem at midnight at the cursed cry of “ Yang 
en Var ! ” 

We saw his Highness in the midst of his people and their 
petitions, when he came to the mosque at Tophana ; not the largest, 
but one of the most picturesque of tlie public buildings of the city. 
The streets were crowded with people watching for the august 
arrival, and lined vdth the squat military in their bastard European 
costume; the sturdy police, vdth bandeliers and brown surtouts, 
keeping order, driving off the faithful from the railings of the 
Esplanade through which their Emperor was to pass, and only 
admitting (with a very unjust partiality, I thought) us Europeans 
into that reserved space. Before the august arrival, numerous 
officers collected, colonels and pashas went by with their attendant 
running footmen ; the jnost active, insolent, and hideous of these 


THE SULTAN 


643 


great men, as I thought, being his Highness’s black eunuchs, who 
went prancing through the crowd, which separated before them with 
every sign of respect. 

Tlie common women were assembled by many hundreds ; the 
yakmac, a muslin chin-cloth which they wear, makes almost every 
face look the same ; but the eyes and noses of these beauties are 
generally visible, and, for the most part, both these features are 
good. The jolly negresses wear the same white veil, but they are 
by no means so particular about hiding the charms of their good- 
natured black faces, and they let the cloth blow about as it lists, 
and grin unconfiiied. Wherever we went the negroes seemed happy. 
They have the organ of child-loving : little creatures were always 
prattling on their shoulders, queer little things in nightgowns of 
yellow dimity, with great flowers, and pink or red or yellow shawls, 
with gi-eat eyes glistening underneath. Of such the black women 
seemed always the happy guardians. I saw one at a fountain, 
holding one child in her arms, and giving another a drink — a ragged 
little beggar — a sweet and touching picture of a black charity. 

I am almost forgetting his Highness the Sultan. About a 
hundred guns were fired off at clumsy intervals from the Esplanade 
facing the Bosphorus, warning us that the monarch had set off from 
his Summer Palace, and was on the way to his grand canoe. At 
last that vessel made its appearance ; the band struck up his 
favourite air ; his caparisoned horse was led down to the shore to 
receive him ; the eunuchs, fat pashas, colonels, and officers of state 
gathering round as the Commander of the Faithful mounted. I had 
the indescribable happiness of seeing him at a very short distance. 
The Padishah, or Father of all the Sovereigns on earth, has not 
that majestic air which some sovereigns possess, and which makes 
the beholder’s eyes wink, and his knees tremble under him : he has 
a black beard, and a handsome well-bred face, of a French cast ; he 
looks like a young French roue worn out by debauch ; his eyes 
bright, with black rings round them ; his cheeks pale and hollow. 
He was lolling on his horse as if he could hardly hold himself on 
the saddle : or as if his cloak, fastened with a blazing diamond clasp 
on his breast, and falling over his horse’s tail, pulled liim back. 
But the handsome sallow face of the Refuge of the World looked 
decidedly interesting and intellectual. I have seen many a young 
Don Juan at Paris, behind a counter, with such a beard and 
countenance ; the flame of passion still burning in his hollow eyes, 
while on his damp brow was stamped the fatal mark of premature 
decay. The man we saw canirot live many summers. Women and 
wine are said to have brought the Zilullah to this state ; and it 
is whispered by the dragomans, or laquais-de-place (from whom 


644 JOURNEY FROM CORNHILL TO CAIRO 


travellers at Constantinople generally get their political information), 
that the Sultan’s mother and his ministers conspire to keep him 
plunged in sensuality, that they may govern the kingdom according 
to their own fancies. Mr. Urquhart, I am sure, thinks that Lord 
Palmerston has something to do with the business, and drugs the 
Sultan’s champagne for the benefit of Russia. 

As the Pontiff of Mussulmans passed into the mosque, a shower 
of petitions was flung from the steps where the crowd was collected, 
and over the heads of the gendarmes in brown. A general cry, as 
for justice, rose up ; and one old ragged woman came forward and 
burst through the throng, howling, and flinging about her lean arms, 
and baring her old shrunken breast. I never saw a finer action of 
tragic woe, or heard sounds more pitiful than those old passionate 
groans of hers. What was your prayer, poor old -wretched souH 
The gendarmes hemmed her round, and hustled her away, but rather 
kindly. The Padishah went on quite impassible — the picture of 
debauch and ennui. 

I like pointing morals, and inventing for myself cheap consola- 
tions, to reconcile me to that state of life into ’v\diich it has pleased 
Heaven to call me; and as the Light of the World disappeared 
round the corner, I reasoned pleasantly with myself about his 
Highness, and enjoyed that secret selfish satisfaction a man has, 
who sees he is better off than his neighbour. “ Michael Angelo,” 
I said, “ you are still (by courtesy) young : if you had five hundred 
thousand a year, and were a great prince, I would lay a wager that 
men would discover in you a magnificent courtesy of demeanour, 
and a majestic presence that only belongs to the sovereigns of the 
world. If you had such an income, you think you could spend 
it with splendour : distributing genial hospitalities, kindly alms, 
soothing misery, bidding humility be of good heart, rewarding 
desert. If you had such means of purchasing pleasure, you think, 
you rogue, you could relish it with gusto. But fancy being brought 
to the condition of the poor Light of the Universe yonder; and 
reconcile yourself with the idea that you are only a farthing rush- 
light. The cries of the poor widow fall as dead upon him as the 
smiles of the brightest eyes out of Georgia. He can’t stir abroad 
but those abominable cannon begin roaring and deafening his ears. 
He can’t see the world but over the shoulders of a row of fat 
pashas, and eunuchs, with their infernal ugliness. His ears can 
never be regaled witli a word of truth, or blessed with an honest 
laugh. The only privilege of manhood left to him, he enjoys but 
for a month in the year, at this time of Ramazan, when he is 
forced to fast for fifteen hours ; and, by consequence, has the bless- 
ing of feeling hungry.” Sunset during Lent appears to be his single 


THE ROYAL MAUSOLEUM 


645 


moment of pleasure ; they say the poor fellow is ravenous by that 
time, and as the gun fires the dish-covers are taken off, so that for 
five minutes a day he lives and is happy over pillau, like another 
mortal. 

And yet, when floating by the Summer Palace, a barbaric edifice 
of wood and marble, with gilded suns blazing over the porticoes, 
and all sorts of strange ornaments and trophies figuring on the gates 
and railings — when we passed a long row of barred and filigreed 
windows, looking on the water — when we were told that those were 
the apartments of his Highness’s ladies, and actually heard them 
whispering and laughing behind the bars — a strange feeling of 
curiosity came over some ill-regulated minds — ^just to have one peep, 
one look at all those wondrous beauties, singing to the dulcimers, 
paddling in the fountains, dancing in the marble halls, or lolling on 
the golden cushions, as the gaudy black slaves brought pipes and 
coffee. This tumultuous movement was calmed by thinking of 
that dreadful statement of travellers, that in one of the most elegant 
halls there is a trap-door, on peeping below which you may see the 
Bosphorus running underneath, into which some luckless beauty is 
plunged occasionally, and the trap-door is shut, and the dancing and 
the singing, and the smoking and the laughing go on as before. 
They say it is death to pick up any of the sacks thereabouts, if a 
stray one should float by you. There were none any day when I 
passed, at least, on the surface of the water. 

It has been rather a fashion of our travellers to apologise for 
Turkish life, of late, and paint glowing agreeable pictures of many 
of its institutions. The celebrated author of “ Palm-Leaves ” (his 
name is famous under the date-trees of the Nile, and uttered with 
respect beneath the tents of tlie Bedaween) has touchingly described 
Ibrahim Pasha’s paternal fondness, who cut off a black slave’s head 
for having dropped and maimed one of his children ; and has penned 
a melodious panegyric of “ The Harem,” and of the fond and 
beautiful duties of the inmates of that place of love, obedience, and 
seclusion. I saw, at the mausoleum of the late Sultan Mahmoud’s 
family, a good subject for a Ghazul, in the true new Oriental 
manner. 

These Royal burial-places are the resort of the pious Moslems. 
Lamps are kept burning there ; and in the ante-chambers, copies 
of the Koran are provided for the use of believers ; and you never 
pass these cemeteries but you see Turks washing at the cisterns, 
previous to entering for prayer, or squatted on the benches, chanting 
passages from the sacred volume. Christians, I believe, are not 
admitted, but may look through the bars, and see the coffins of 
the defunct monarchs and children of the Royal race. Each lies 


646 JOURNEY FROM CORNHILL TO CAIRO 


in his narrow sarcophagus, which is commonly flanked by huge 
candles, and covered with a rich embroidered pall. At the head of 
each coffin rises a slab, with a gilded inscription ; for the princesses, 
tlie slab is simple, not unlike our own monumental stones. The 
headstones of the tombs of the defunct princes are decorated with 
a turban, or, since the introduction of the latter article of dress, 
with the red fez. That of Mahmoud is decorated with the imperial 
aigrette. 

In this dismal but splendid museum, I remarked two little 
tombs with little red fezzes, very small, and for very young heads 
evidently, which were lying under the little embroidered palls of 
state. I forget whether they had candles too ; but their little 
flame of life was soon extinguished, and there was no need of many 
pounds of wax to typify it. These were the tombs of Mahmoud’s 
grandsons, nephews of the present Light of the Universe, and 
children of his sister, the wife of Halil Pasha. Little children die 
in all ways : these of the much-maligned Mahometan Royal race 
perished by the bowstring. Sultan Mahmoud (may he rest in 
glory !) strangled the one ; but, having some spark of human 
feeling, was so moved by the wretcliedness and agony of the poor 
bereaved mother, his daughter, that his Royal heart relented towards 
her, and he promised that, should she ever have another child, it 
should be allowed to live. He died ; and Abdul Medjid (may his 
name be blessed !), the debauched young man whom we just saw 
riding to the mosque, succeeded. His sister, whom he is said to 
have loved, became again a mother, and had a son. But she relied 
upon her father’s word and her august brother’s love, and hoped 
that this little one should be spared. The same accursed hand tore 
this infant out of its mother’s bosom, and killed it. The poor 
woman’s heart broke outright at this second calamity, and she 
died. But on her deathbed she sent for her brother, rebuked 
him as a perjurer and an assassin, and expired calling down the 
divine justice on his head. She lies now by the side of the two 
little fezzes. 

Now I say this would be a fine subject for an Oriental poem. 
The details are dramatic and noble, and could be grandly touched 
by a fine artist. If the mother had borne a daughter, the child 
would have been safe ; that perplexity might be pathetically depicted 
as agitating the bosom of the young wife about to become a mother. 
A son is born : you can see her despair and the pitiful look she casts 
on the child, and the way in which she hugs it every time the 
curtains of her door are removed. The Sultan hesitated probably ; 
he allowed the infant to live for six weeks. He could not bring 
his Royal soul to inflict pain. He yields at last ; he is a martyr — 


4 - 


THE CHILD-MURDERER 


647 


to be pitied, not to be blamed. If he melts at his daughter’s 
agony, he is a man and a father. There are men and fathers too 
in the mnch-maligned Orient. 

Then comes the second act of the tragedy. The new hopes, 
the fond yearnings, the terrified misgivings, the timid belief, and 
weak confidence ; the child that is born — and dies smiling prettily 
— and the mother’s heart is rent so, that it can love, or hope, or 
suffer no more. Allah is God ! She sleeps by the little fezzes. 
Hark ! the guns are booming over the water, and his Highness 
is coming from his prayers. 

After the murder of that little child, it seems to me one can 
never look with anything but horror upon the butcherly Herod who 
ordered it. The death of the seventy thousand Janissaries ascends 
to historic dignity, and takes rank as war. But a great Prince 
and Light of the Universe, who procures abortions and throttles 
little babies, dwindles away into such a frightful insignificance of 
crime, that those may respect him who will. I pity their Excel- 
lencies the Ambassadors, who are obliged to smirk and cringe to 
such a rascal. To do the Turks justice — and two days’ walk in 
Constantinople will settle this fact — as well as a year’s residence 
in the city — the people do not seem in the least animated by this 
Herodian spirit. I never saw more kindness to children than 
among all classes, more fathers walking about with little solemn 
Mahometans in red caps and big trousers, more business going on 
than in the toy quarter, and in the Atmeidan. Although you may 
see there the Thebaic stone set up by the Emperor Theodosius, and 
the bronze column of serpents w^hich Murray says was brought from 
Delphi, but which my guide informed me was the very one exhibited 
by Moses in the wilderness, yet I found the examination of these 
antiquities much less pleasant than to look at the many troops of 
children assembled on the plain to play ; and to watch them as 
they were dragged about in little queer arobas, or painted carriages, 
which are there kept for hire. I have a picture of one of them 
now in my eyes : a little green oval machine, with flowers rudely 
painted round the window, out of which two smiling heads are peep- 
ing, the pictures of happiness. An old, good-humoured, grey-bearded 
Turk is tugging the cart; and behind it walks a lady in a yakmac and 
yellow slippers, and a black female slave, grinning as usual, towards 
whom the little coach-riders are looking. A small sturdy barefooted 
Mussulman is examining the cart with some feelings of envy : he 
he is too poor to purchase a ride for himself and the round-faced 
puppy-dog, which he is hugging in his arms as young ladies in our 
country do dolls. 

All the neighbourhood of the Atmeidan is exceedingly picturesque 


648 JOURNEY FROM CORNHILL TO CAIRO 


— the mosque court and cloister, where the Persians have their 
stalls of sweetmeats and tobacco ; a superb sycamore-tree grows in 
the middle of this, overshadowing an aromatic fountain ; great flocks 
of pigeons are settling in corners of the cloister, and barley is sold 
at the gates, with which the good-natured people feed them. From 
the Atmeidan you have a fine view of St. Sophia : and here stands 
a mosque which struck me as being much more picturesque and 
sumptuous — the Mosque of Sultan Achmed, with its six gleaming 
white minarets and its beautiful courts and trees. Any infidels 
may enter the court without molestation, and, looking through the 
barred windows of the mosque, have a view of its airy and spacious 
interior. A small audience of women was collected there when I 
looked in, squatted on the mats, and listening to a preacher, who 
■was walking among them, and speaking with great energy. My 
dragoman interpreted to me the sense of a few words of his sermon : 
he was warning them of the danger of gadding about to public 
places, and of the immorality of too much talking ; and, I dare say, 
we might have had more valuable information from him regarding 
the follies of womankind, had not a tall Turk clapped my interpreter 
on the shoulder, and pointed him to be off. 

Although the ladies are veiled, and muffled with the ugliest 
dresses in the world, yet it appears their modesty is alarmed in 
spite of all the coverings which they wear. One day, in the bazaar, 
a fat old body, with diamond rings on her fingers, that were tinged 
with henn^ of a logwood colour, came to the shop where I was 
purchasing slippers, with her son, a young Aga of six years of 
age, dressed in a braided frock-coat, with a huge tassel to his fez, 
exceeding fat, and of a most solemn demeanour. The young Aga 
came for a pair of shoes, and his contortions were so delightful as 
he tried them, that I remained looking on with great pleasure, 
wishing for Leech to be at hand to sketch his lordship and his fat 
mamma, who sat on the counter. That lady fancied I was looking 
at her, though, as far as I could see, she had the figure and com- 
plexion of a roly-poly pudding; and so, with quite a premature 
bashfulness, she sent me a message by the shoemaker, ordering me 
to walk aAvay if I had made my purchases, for that ladies of her 
rank did not choose to be stared at by strangers ; and I was obliged 
to take my leave, though with sincere regret, for the little lord 
had just squeezed himself into an attitude than which I never saw 
anything more ludicrous in General Tom Thumb. When the ladies 
of the Seraglio come to that bazaar witli their cortege of infernal 
black eunuchs, strangers are told to move on briskly. I saw a 
bevy of about eight of these, with their aides-de-camp ; but they 
were wrapped up, and looked just as vulgar and ugly as the other 


THE SERAGLIO 


649 

women, and were not, I suppose, of the most beautiful sort. The 
poor devils are allowed to come out, half-a-dozen times in the year, 
to spend their little wretched allowance of pocket-money in pur- 
chasing trinkets and tobacco ; all the rest of the time they pursue 
the beautiful duties of their existence in the walls of the sacred 
harem. 

Though strangers are not allowed to see the interior of the cage 
in which these birds of Paradise are confined, yet many parts of the 
Seraglio are free to the curiosity of visitors, who choose to drop a 
backsheesh here and there. I landed one morning at the Seraglio 
point from Galata, close by an ancient pleasure-house of the defunct 
Sultan ; a vast broad-brimmed pavilion, that looks agreeable enougli 
to be a dancing-room for ghosts now : there is another summer-house, 
the Guide-book cheerfully says, wliither the Sultan goes to sport 
with his women and mutes. A regiment of infantry, with their 
music at their head, Avere marching to exercise in the outer grounds 
of the Seraglio ; and Ave followed them, and had an opportunity of 
seeing their evolutions, and hearing their bands, upon a fine green 
plain under the Seraglio walls, where stands one solitary column, 
erected in memory of some triumph of some Byzantian emperor. 

There Avere three battalions of the Turkish infantry, exercising 
here ; and they seemed to perform their evolutions in a very satis- 
factory manner : that is, they fired all togetlier, and charged and 
halted in very straight lines, and bit off imaginary cartridge-tops 
Avith great fierceness and regularity, and made all their ramrods 
ring to measure, just like so many Christians. The men looked 
small, young, clumsy, and ill-buiit ; uncomfortable in their shabby 
European clothes ; and about the legs, especially, seemed exceedingly 
weak and ill formed. Some score of military iiiA^alids were lolling 
in the sunshine, about a fountain and a marble summer-house that 
stand on the ground, watching their comrades’ manoeuvres (as if 
they could never have enough of that delightful pastime) j and these 
sick were much better cared for than their healthy companions. 
Each man had two dressing-gowns, one of white cotton, and an 
outer wrapper of warm broAvn woollen. Their heads Avere accom- 
modated with wadded cotton nightcaps ; and it seemed to me, from 
their condition and from the excellent character of the military 
hospitals, that it Avould be much more Avholesome to be ill than to 
be well in the Turkish service. 

Facing this green esplanade, and the Bosphorus shining beyond 
it, rise the great walls of the outer Seraglio Gardens : huge masses 
of ancient masonry, over which peep the roofs of numerous kiosks 
and outhouses, amongst thick evergreens, planted so as to hide the 
beautiful frequenters of the place from the prying eyes and telescopes. 


650 JOUKNEY FROM CORNHILL TO CAIRO 

We could not catch a glance of a single figure moving in these great 
pleasure-grounds. The road winds round the walls ; and the outer 
park, which is likewise planted with trees, and diversified by garden- 
plots and cottages, had more the air of the outbuildings of a homely 
English park, than of a palace which we must all have imagined to 
be the most stately in the world. The most commonplace water- 
carts were passing here and there ; roads were being repaired in the 
Macadamite manner ; and carpenters were mending the park-palings, 
just as they do in Hampshire. The next thing you might fancy 
would be the Sultan walking out with a spud and a couple of dogs, 
on the way to meet the post-bag and the Saint James's Chronicle. 

The palace is no palace at all. It is a great town of pavilions, 
built without order, here and there, according to the fancy of 
succeeding Lights of the Universe, or their favourites. The only 
row of domes which looked particularly regular or stately, were the 
kitchens. As you examined the buildings they had a ruinous 
dilapidated look : they are not furnished, it is said, with particular 
splendour, — not a bit more elegantly than Miss Jones’s seminary 
for young ladies, which we may be sure is much more comfortable 
than the extensive establishment of his Highness Abdul Medjid. 

In the little stable I thought to see some marks of Royal 
magnificence, and some horses worthy of the king of all kings. But 
the Sultan is said to be a very timid horseman : the animal that is 
always kept saddled for him did not look to be worth twenty 
pounds ; and the rest of the horses in the shabby dirty stalls were 
small, ill-kept, common-looking brutes. You might see better, it 
seemed to me, at a country inn stable on any market-day. 

The kitchens are the most sublime part of the Seraglio. There 
are nine of these great halls, for all ranks, from his Highness down- 
wards, where many hecatombs are roasted daily, according to the ac- 
counts, and where cooking goes on with a savage Homeric grandeur. 
Chimneys are despised in these primitive halls ; so that the roofs 
are black with the smoke of hundreds of furnaces, which escapes 
through apertures in the domes above. These, too, give the chief 
light in the rooms, which streams downwards, and thickens and 
mingles with the smoke, and so murkily lights up hundreds of 
swarthy figures busy about the spits and the caldrons. Close to 
the door by which we entered they were making pastry for the 
sultanas ; and the chief pastrycook, who knew my guide, invited us 
courteously to see the process, and partake of the delicacies prepared 
for those charming lips. How those sweet lips must shine after 
eating these puffs ! First, huge sheets of dough are rolled out till 
the paste is about as thiu as silver paper : then an artist forms the 
dough-muslin into a sort of drapery, curling it round and round in 


THE SERAGLIO 


651 


many fanciful and pretty shapes, until it is all got into the circum- 
ference of a round metal tray in which it is baked. Then the cake 
is drenched in grease most profusely ; and, finally, a quantity of 
syrup is poured over it, when the delectable mixture is complete. 
The moon-faced ones are said to devour immense quantities of this 
wholesome food ; and, in fact, are eating grease and sweetmeats 
from morning till night. I don’t like to think what the consequences 
may be, or allude to the agonies which the delicate creatures must 
inevitably suffer. 

The good-natured chief pastrycook filled a copper basin with 
greasy puffs; and, dipping a dubious ladle into a large caldron, 
containing several gallons of syrup, poured a liberal portion over the 
cakes, and invited us to eat. One of the tarts was quite enough for 
me ; and I excused myself on the plea of ill-health from imbibing 
any more grease and sugar. But my companion, the dragoman, 
finished some fortj^ puffs in a twinkling. They slipped down his 
opened jaws as the sausages do down clowns’ throats in a pantomine. 
His moustaches shone with grease, and it dripped down his beard 
and fingers. We thanked the smiling chief pastrycook, and re- 
warded him handsomely for the tarts. It is something to have 
eaten of the dainties prepared for the ladies of the harem ; but I 
think Mr. Cockle ought to get the names of the chief sultanas 
among the exalted patrons of his antibilious pills. 

From the kitchens we passed into the second court of the 
Seraglio, beyond which is death. The Guide-book only hints at 
the dangers which would befall a stranger caught prying in the 
mysterious first court of the palace. I have read “ Blue-beard,” 
and don’t care for peeping into forbidden doors ; so that the second 
court was quite enough for me ; the pleasure of beholding it being 
heightened, as it were, by the notion of the invisible danger sitting 
next door, with uplifted scimitar ready to fall on you — present 
though not seen 

A cloister runs along one side of this court ; opposite is the hall 
of the divan, “ large but low, covered with lead, and gilt, after the 
Moorish manner, plain enough.” The Grand Vizier sits in this 
place, and the ambassadors used to wait here, and be conducted 
hence on horseback, attired witli robes of honour. But the ceremony 
is now, I believe, discontinued ; the English envoy, at any rate, is 
not allowed to receive any backsheesh, and goes away as he came, 
in the habit of his own nation. On the right is a door leading into 
the interior of the Seraglio ; none ]}ass through it hut such as are 
sent for, the Guide-book says : it is impossible to top the terror of 
that description. 

About this door lads and servants were lolling, ichoglans and 


652 JOURNEY FROM CORNHILL TO CAIRO 


pages, with lazy looks and shabby dresses; and among them, 
sunning himself sulkily on a bench, a poor old fat, wrinkled, dismal 
white eunuch, with little fat white hands, and a great head sunk 
into his chest, and two sprawling little legs that seemed incapable 
to hold up his bloated old body. He squeaked out some surly 
reply to my friend the dragoman, who, softened and sweetened by 
the tarts he had just been devouring, was, no doubt, anxious to be 
polite : and the poor worthy fellow walked away rather crestfallen 
at this return of his salutation, and hastened me out of the place. 

Tlie palace of the Seraglio, the cloister with marble pillars, the 
hall of the ambassadors, the impenetrable gate guarded by eunuchs 
and ichoglans, have a romantic look in print ; but not so in reality. 
Most of the marble is wood, almost all the gilding is faded, the 
guards are shabby, the foolish perspectives painted on the walls are 
half cracked off. The place looks like Vauxhall in the daytime. 

We passed out of the second court under The Sublime Porte 
— which is like a fortified gate of a German town of the middle 
ages — into the outer court, round which are public offices, hospitals, 
and dwellings of the multifarious servants of the palace. This place 
is very wide and picturesque ; there is a pretty church of Byzantine 
architecture at the farther end ; and in the midst of the court a 
magnificent plane-tree, of prodigious dimensions and fabulous age 
according to the guides ; St. Sophia towers in the farther distance : 
and from here, perhaps, is tlie best view of its light swelling domes 
and beautiful proportions. The Porte itself, too, forms an excellent 
subject for the sketcher, if the officers of the court will permit him 
to design it. I made the attempt, and a couple of Turkish beadles 
looked on very good-naturedly for some time at the progress of the 
drawing; but a good number of other spectators speedily joined 
them, and made a crowd, which is not permitted, it would seem, in 
the Seraglio ; so I was told to pack up my portfolio, and remove 
the cause of the disturbance, and lost my drawing of the Ottoman 
Porte. 

I don’t think I have anything more to say about the city which 
has not been much better told by graver travellers. I, with them, 
could see (perhaps it was the preaching of the politicians that 
warned me of the fact) that we are looking on at the last days of 
an empire ; and heard many stories of weakness, disorder, and 
oppression. I even saw a Turkish lady drive up to Sultan Achmet’s 
mosque in a brougham. Is not that a subject to moralise upon 1 
And might one not draw endless conclusions from it, that the knell 
of the Turkish dominion is rung ; that the European spirit and insti- 
tutions once admitted can never be rooted out again ; and that the 
scepticism prevalent amongst the higher orders must descend ere 


A JOLLY OLD MUSSULMAN 653 

very long to the lower ; and the cry of the muezzin from the mosque 
become a mere ceremony ? 

But as I only stayed eight days in this place, and knew not a 
syllable of the language, perhaps it is as well to pretermit any dis- 
quisitions about the spirit of the people. I can only say that they 
looked to be very good-natured, handsome, and lazy ; that the 
women’s yellow slippers are very ugly ; that the kabobs at the shop 
hard by the Rope Bazaar are very hot and good ; and that at the 
Armenian cookshops they serve you delicious fish, and a stout raisin 
wine of no small merit. There came in, as we sat and dined there 
at sunset, a good old Turk, who called for a penny fish, and sat 
down under a tree very humbly, and ate it with his own bread. 
We made that jolly old Mussulman happy with a quart of the 
raisin wine ; and his eyes twinkled with every fresh glass, and he 
wiped his old beard delighted, and talked and chirped a good deal, 
and, I dare say, told us the whole state of the empire. He was 
the only Mussulman with whom I attained any degree of intimacy 
during my stay in Constantinople; and you will see that, for 
obvious reasons, I cannot divulge the particulars of our conversation. 

“You have nothing to say, and you own it,” says somebody: 
“ then why write 1 ” That question perhaps (between ourselves) 
I have put likewise ; and yet, my dear sir, there are some things 
worth remembering even in this brief letter : that woman in the 
brougham is an idea of significance : that comparison of the Seraglio 
to Vauxhall in the daytime is a true and real one; from both of 
which your own great soul and ingenious philosopliic spirit may draw 
conclusions, that I myself have modestly forborne to press. You 
are too clever to require a moral to be tacked to all the fables you 
read, as is done for children in the spelling books ; else I would tell 
you that the government of the Ottoman Porte seems to be as 
rotten, as wrinkled, and as feeble as the old eunuch I saw crawling 
about it in the sun ; that when the lady drove up in a brougham to 
Sultan Achmet, I felt that the schoolmaster was really abroad ; and 
that the crescent will go out before that luminary, as meekly as the 
moon does before the sun. 


CHAPTER VIII 


RHODES 

T he sailing of a vessel direct for Jaffa brought a great number 
of passengers together, and our decks were covered with 
Christian, Jew, and Heathen. In the cabin we were Poles 
and Russians, Frenchmen, Germans, Spaniards, and Greeks ; on 
the deck were squatted several little colonies of people of different 
race and persuasion. There was a Greek Papa, a noble figure with 
a fiowing and venerable white beard, who had been living on bread- 
and-water for I don’t know how many years, in order to save a 
little money to make the pilgrimage to Jerusalem. There were 
several families of Jewish Rabbis, who celebrated their “feast of 
tabernacles” on board; their chief men performing worship twice 
or thrice a day, dressed in their pontifical habits, and bound with 
phylacteries : and there were Turks, who had their own ceremonies 
and usages, and vdsely kept aloof from their neighbours of Israel. 

The dirt of these children of captivity exceeds all possibility 
of description ; the profusion of stinks which they raised, the grease 
of their venerable garments and faces, the horrible messes cooked 
in the filthy pots, and devoured with the nasty fingers, the squalor 
of mats, pots, old bedding, and foul carpets of our Hebrew friends, 
could hardly be painted by Swift in his dirtiest mood, and cannot 
be, of course, attempted by my timid and genteel pen. What 
would they say in Baker Street to some sights with which our new 
friends favoured us What would your ladyship have said if you 
had seen the interesting Greek nun combing her hair over the cabin 
—combing it with the natural fingers, and, averse to slaughter, 
flinging the delicate little intruders, which she found in the course 
of her investigation, gently into the great cabin? Our attention 
was a good deal occupied in watching the strange ways and customs 
of the various comrades of ours. 

The Jews were refugees from Poland, going to lay their bones 
to rest in the valley of Jehoshaphat, and performing with exceeding 
rigour the offices of their religion. At morning and evening you 
were sure to see the chiefs of the families, arrayed in white robes, 
bowing over their books, at prayer. Once a week, on the eve before 


RHODES 


655 


the Sabbath, there was a general washing in Jewry, which sufficed 
until the ensuing Friday. The men wore long gowns and caps of 
fur, or else broad-brimmed hats, or, in service time, bound on their 
heads little iron boxes, with the sacred name engraved on them. 
Among the lads there were some beautiful faces ; and among the 
women your humble servant discovered one who was a perfect rose- 
bud of beauty when first emerging from her Friday’s toilet, and for 
a day or two afterwards, until each succeeding day’s smut darkened 
those fresh and delicate cheeks of hers. We had some very rough 
weather in the course of the passage from Constantinople to Jaffa, 
and the sea washed over and over our Israelitish friends and their 
baggages and bundles ; but though they were said to be rich, they 
would not afford to pay for cabin shelter. One father of a family, 
finding his progeny half drowned in a squall, vowed he would pay 
for a cabin ; but the weather was somewhat finer the next day, 
and he could not squeeze out his dollars, and the ship’s authorities 
would not admit him except upon payment. 

This unwillingness to part with money is not only found 
amongst the followers of Moses, but in those of Mahomet, and 
Christians too. When Ave went to purchase in the bazaars, after 
offering money for change, the honest fellows would frequently keep 
back several piastres, and when urged to refund, would give most 
dismally : and begin doling out penny by penny, and utter pathetic 
prayers to their customer not to take any more. I bought five or 
six pounds’ worth of Broussa silks for the womankind, in the bazaar 
at Constantinople, and the rich Armenian who sold them begged for 
three-halfpence to pay his boat to Galata. There is sometliing naif 
and amusing in this exhibition of cheatery — this simple cringing and 
wheedling, and passion for twopence-halfpenny. It was pleasant to 
give a millionaire beggar an alms, and laugh in his face and say, 
“ There, Dives, there’s a penny for you : be happy, you poor old 
swindling scoundrel, as far as a penny goes.” I used to w^atch these 
Jews on shore, and making bargains with one another as soon as 
they came on board ; the battle between vendor and purchaser was 
an agony — they shrieked, clasped hands, appealed to one another 
passionately ; their handsome noble faces assumed a look of woe — ■ 
quite an heroic eagerness and sadness about a farthing. 

Ambassadors from our Hebrews descended at Rhodes to buy 
provisions, and it was curious to see their dealings : there was our 
venerable Rabbi, who, robed in white and silver, and bending over 
his book at the morning service, looked like a patriarch, and whom 
I saw chaffering about a fowl with a brother Rhodian Israelite. 
How they fought oyer the body of that lean animal ! The street 
swarmed with Jews : goggling eyes looked out from the old carved 


656 JOURNEY FROM CORNHILL TO CAIRO 


casements — hooked noses issued from tlie low antique doors — Jew 
boys driving donkeys, Hebrew mothers nursing children, dusky, 
tawdry, ragged young beauties and most venerable grey-bearded 
fathers were all gathered round about the affair of the hen ! And 
at the same time that our Rabbi was arranging the price of it, his 
children were instructed to procure bundles of green branches to 
dacorate the ship during their feast. Think of the centuries during 
which these wonderful people have remained unchanged ; and how, 
from the days of Jacob downwards, they have believed and 
swindled ! 

The Rhodian Jews, with their genius for filth, have made their 
quarter of the noble desolate old town the most ruinous and wretched 
of all. The escutcheons of the proud old knights are still carved 
over the doors, whence issue these miserable greasy hucksters and 
pedlars. The Turks respected these emblems of the brave enemies 
whom they had overcome, and left them untouclied. When the 
French seized Malta they were by no means so delicate : they 
effaced armorial bearings with their usual hot-headed eagerness ; 
and a few years after they had torn down the coats-of-arms of the 
gentry, the heroes of Malta and Egypt were busy devising heraldry 
for themselves, and were wild to be barons and counts of the 
Empire. 

The chivalrous relics at Rhodes are very superb. I know of no 
buildings whose stately and picturesque aspect seems to correspond 
better with one’s notions of their proud founders. The towns and 
gates are warlike and strong, but beautiful and aristocratic : you 
see that they must have been high-bred gentlemen who built them. 
The edifices appear in almost as perfect a condition as when they 
were in the occupation of the noble Knights of St. John ; and they 
have this advantage over modern fortifications, that they are a 
thousand times more picturesque. Ancient war condescended to 
ornament itself, and built fine carved castles and vaulted gates : 
whereas, to judge from Gibraltar and Malta, nothing can be less 
romantic than the modern military architecture ; which sternly 
regards the fighting, without in the least heeding the war-paint. 
Some of the huge artillery with which the place was defended still 
lie in the bastions ; and the touch-holes of the guns are preserved 
by being covered with rusty old corselets, worn by defenders of the 
fort three hundred years ago. The Turks, who battered down 
chivalry, seem to be waiting their turn of destruction now. In 
walking through Rhodes one is strangely affected by witnessing the 
signs of this double decay. For instance, in the streets of the 
kniglits, you see noble houses, surmounted by noble escutcheons of 
superb knights, who lived there, and prayed, and quarrelled, and 


MAHOMETANISM BANKRUPT 657 

murdered the Turks ; and were the most gallant pirates of the 
inland seas ; and made vows of chastity, and robbed and ravished ; 
and, professing humility, would admit none but nobility into their 
order; and died recommending themselves to sweet St. John, and 
calmly hoping for heaven in consideration of all the heathen they 
had slain. When this superb fraternity was obliged to yield to 
courage as great as theirs, faith as sincere, and to robbers even 
more dexterous and audacious than tfie noblest knight who ever 
sang a canticle to the Virgin, these halls were filled by magnificent 
Pashas and Agas, who lived here in the intervals of war, and 
having conquered its best champions, despised Christendom and 
chivalry pretty much as an Englishman despises a Frenchman. 
Now the famous house is let to a shabby merchant, who has his 
little beggarly shop in the bazaar ; to a small officer, who ekes out 
his wretched pension by swindling, and who gets his pay in bad 
coin. Mahometanism pays in pewter now, in place of silver and 
gold. The lords of the world have run to seed. The powerless 
old sword frightens nobody now — the steel is turned to pewter too, 
somehow, and will no longer shear a Christian head off any 
shoulders. In the Crusades my wicked sympathies have always 
been with the Turks. They seem to me the better Christians of 
the two : more humane, less brutally presumptuous about their own 
merits, and more generous in esteeming their neighbours. As far 
as I can get at the authentic story, Saladin is a pearl of refinement 
compared to the brutal beef-eating Richard — about whom Sir Walter 
Scott has led all the world astray. 

When shall we have a real account of those times and heroes — 
no good-hurtioured pageant, like those of the Scott romances, but 
a real authentic story to instruct and frighten honest people of the 
present day, and make them thankful that the grocer governs the 
world now in place of the baron? Meanwhile a man of tender 
feelings may be pardoned for twaddling a little over this sad 
spectacle of the decay of two of the great institutions of the world. 
Knighthood is gone — amen ; it expired with dignity, its face to the 
foe : and old Mahometanism is lingering about just ready to drop. 
But it is unseemly to see such a Grand Potentate in such a state of 
decay : the son of Bajazet Ilderim insolvent ; the descendants of 
the Prophet bullied by Calmucs and English and whipper-snapper 
Frenchmen ; the Fountain of Magnificence done up, and obliged to 
coin pewter ! Think of the poor dear houris in Paradise, how sad 
they must look as the arrivals of the Faithful become less and less 
frequent every day. I can fancy the place beginning to wear the 
fatal Vauxhall look of the Seraglio, and which has pursued me ever 
since I saw it ; the fountains of eternal wine are beginning to run 
5 2 T 


658 JOURNEY FROM CORNJIILL TO CAIRO 


rather dry, and of a questionable liquor; the ready-roasted-meat 
trees may cry, “ Come eat me,” every now and then, in a faint 
voice, without any gravy in it — but the Faithful begin to doubt 
about the quality of the victuals. Of nights you may see the 
houris sitting sadly under them, darning their faded muslins : Ali, 
Omar, and the Imaums are reconciled and have gloomy consulta- 
tions : and the Chief of the Faithful himself, the awful camel-driver, 
the supernatural husband of Khadijah, sits alone in a tumbledown 
kiosk, thinking moodily of the destiny that is impending over him ; 
and of the day when his gardens of bliss shall be as vacant as the 
bankrupt Olympus. 

All the town of Rhodes has this appearance of decay and ruin, 
except a few consuls’ houses planted on the seaside, here and there, 
with bright flags flaunting in the sun ; fresh paint ; English 
crockery ; shining mahogany, &c., — so many emblems of the new 
prosperity of their trade, while the old inhabitants were going to 
wrack — the fine Church of St. John, converted into a mosque, is a 
ruined church, with a ruined mosque inside ; the fortifications are 
mouldering away, as much as time will let them. There was 
considerable bustle and stir about the little port ; but it was the 
bustle of people who looked for the most part to be beggars ; and 
I saw no shop in the bazaar that seemed to have the value of a 
pedlar’s pack. 

I took, by way of guide, a young fellow from Berlin, a journey- 
man shoemaker, who had just been making a tour in Syria, and 
who professed to speak both Arabic and Turkish quite fluently — 
which I thought he might have learned when he was -a student at 
college, before he began his profession of shoemaking ; but I found 
he only knew about three words of Turkish, which were produced 
on every occasion, as I walked under his guidance through the 
desolate streets of the noble old town. We went out upon the 
lines of fortification, through an ancient gate and guard-house, where 
once a chapel probably stood, and of which the roofs were richly 
carved and gilded. A ragged squad of Turkish soldiers lolled about 
the gate now ; a couple of boys on a donkey ; a grinning slave on 
a mule ; a pair of women flapping along in yellow papooshes ; a 
basket-maker sitting under an antique carved portal, and chanting 
or howling as he plaited his osiers : a peaceful well of water, at 
which knights’ chargers had drunk, and at which the double-boyed 
donkey was now refreshing himself — would have made a pretty 
picture for a sentimental artist. As he sits, and endeavoms to 
make a sketch of this plaintive little comedy, a shabby dignitary 
of the island comes clattering by on a thirty-shilling horse, and two 


A FINE DAY 659 

or three of the ragged soldiers leave their pipes to salute him as he 
passes under the Gothic archway. 

The astonishing brightness and clearness of the sky under which 
the island seemed to bask, struck me as surpassing anything I had 
seen — not even at Cadiz, or the Piraeus, had I seen sands so yellow, 
or water so magnificently blue. The houses of the people along 
the shore were but poor tenements, with humble courtyards and 
gardens ; but every fig-tree was gilded and bright, as if it were in 
an Hesperian orchard ; the palms, planted here and there, rose with 
a sort of halo of light round about them ; the creepers on the walls 
quite dazzled with the brilliancy of their flowers and leaves ; the 
people lay in the cool shadows, happy and idle, with handsome 
solemn faces ; nobody seemed to be at work ; they only talked a 
very little, as if idleness and silence were a condition of the delight- 
ful shining atmosphere in which they lived. 

We went down to an old mosque by the seashore, with a cluster 
of ancient domes hard by it, blazing in the sunshine, and carved all 
over with names of Allah, and titles of old pirates and generals who 
reposed there. The guardian of the mosque sat in the garden-court, 
upon a high wooden pulpit, lazily wagging his body to and fro, and 
singing the praises of the Prophet gently through his nose, as the 
breeze stirred through the trees overhead, and cast chequered and 
changing shadows over the paved court, and the little fountains, 
and the nasal psalmist on his perch. On one side was the mosque, 
into which you could see, with its white walls and cool-matted floor, 
and quaint carved pulpit and ornaments, and nobody at prayers. 
In the middle distance rose up the noble towers and battlements of 
the knightly town, with the deep sea-line behind them. 

It really seemed as if everybody was to have a sort of sober 
cheerfulness, and must yield to indolence under this charming atmos- 
phere. I went into the courtyard by the seashore (where a few 
lazy ships were lying, with no one on board), and found it was the 
prison of the place. The door was as wide open as Westminster 
Hall. Some prisoners, one or two soldiers and functionaries, and 
some prisoners’ wives, were lolling under an arcade by a fountain ; 
other criminals were strolling about here and there, their chains 
clinking quite cheerfully; and they and the guards and officials 
came up chatting quite friendly together, and gazed languidly over 
the portfolio, as I was endeavouring to get the likeness of one or 
two of these comfortable malefactors. One old and wrinkled she- 
criminal, whom I had selected on account of the peculiar hideousness 
of her countenance, covered it up with a dirty cloth, at which there 
was a general roar of laughter among this good-humoured auditory 
of cut-throats, pickpockets, and policemen. The only symptom of 


660 JOURNEY FROM CORNHILL TO CAIRO 


a prison about the place was a door, across which a couple of 
sentinels were stretched, yawning; while within lay three freshly- 
caught pirates — chained by the leg. They had committed some 
murders of a very late date, and were awaiting sentence ; but their 
wives were allowed to communicate freely with them : and it seemed 
to me that if half-a-dozen friends would set them free, and they 
themselves had energy enough to move, the sentinels would be a 
great deal too lazy to walk after them. 

The combined influence of Rhodes and Ramazan, I suppose, had 
taken possession of my friend the Schustergesell from Berlin. As 
soon as he received his fee, he cut me at once, and went and lay 
down by a fountain near the port, and ate grapes out of a dirty 
pocket-handkerchief. Other Christian idlers lay near him, dozing, 
or sprawling, in the boats, or listlessly munching water-melons. 
Along the coffee-houses of the quay sat hundreds more, with no 
better employment ; and the captain of the Iberia and his officers, 
and several of the passengers in that famous steamship, were in this 
company, being idle with all their might. Two or three adventurous 
young men went off to see the valley where the dragon was killed ; 
but others, more susceptible of the real influence of the island, I 
am sure would not have moved though we had been told that the 
Colossus himself was taking a walk half a mile off. 


CHAPTER IX 


THE WHITE SQUALL 

O X deck, beneath the awning, 

I dozing lay and yawning ; 

It was the grey of dawning. 

Ere yet the sun arose ; 

And above the funnel’s roaring. 

And the fitful wind’s deploring, 

I heard the cabin snoring . 

AVith universal nose. 

I could hear the passengers snorting, 

I envied their disporting : 

Vainly I was courting 
The pleasure of a doze. 

So I lay, and wondered why light 
Came not, and watched the twilight 
And the glimmer of the skylight. 

That shot across the deck ; 

And the binnacle pale and steady. 

And the dull glimpse of the dead-eye. 
And the sparks in fiery eddy. 

That whirled from the chimney neck : 
In our jovial floating prison 
There was sleep from fore to mizzen. 

And never a star had risen 
The hazy sky to speck. 

Strange company we harboured ; 

We’d a hundred Jews to larboard, 
Unwashed, uncombed, unbarbered, 

Jews black, and brown, and grey ; 
AVith terror it would seize ye. 

And make your souls uneasy. 

To see those Rabbis greasy. 

Who did nought but scratch and pray 


662 JOURNEY FROM CORNHILL TO CAIRO 


Their dirty children puking, 

Their dirty saucepans cooking, 

Their dirty fingers hooking 
Their swarming fleas away. 

To starboard Turks and Greeks were. 
Whiskered, and brown their cheeks were. 
Enormous wide their breeks were. 

Their pipes did puff alway ; 

Each on his mat allotted. 

In silence smoked and squatted. 

Whilst round their children trotted 
In pretty, pleasant play. 

He can’t but smile who traces 
The smiles on those brown faces. 

And the pretty prattling graces 
Of those small heathens gay. 

And so the hours kept tolling, 

And through the ocean rolling. 

Went the brave Iberia bowling 

Before the break of day 

When a Squall upon a sudden 
Came o’er the waters scudding ; 

And the clouds began to gather. 

And the sea was lashed to lather. 

And the lowering thunder grumbled. 

And the lightning jumped and tumbled. 
And the ship, and all the ocean. 

Woke up in wild commotion. 

Then the wind set up a howling. 

And the poodle-dog a yowling. 

And the cocks began a crowing. 

And the old cow raised a lowing. 

As she heard the tempest blowing ; 

And fowls and geese did cackle. 

And the cordage and the tackle 
Began to shriek and crackle ; 

And the spray dashed o’er the funnels. 
And down the deck in runnels ; 

And the rushing water soaks all. 

From the seamen in the fo’ksal 


663 


THE WHITE SQUALL 

To the stokers, whose black faces 
Peer out of their bed-places ; 

And the captain he was bawling, 

And the sailors pulling, hauling ; 

And the quarter-deck tarpauling 
Was shivered in the squalling; 

And the passengers awaken. 

Most pitifully shaken ; 

And the steward jumps up, and hastens 
For the necessary basins. 

Then the Greeks they groaned and quivered. 
And they knelt, and moaned, and shivered. 

As the plunging waters met them. 

And splashed and overset them ; 

And they call in their emergence 
Upon countless saints and virgins; 

And their marrowbones are bended. 

And they think the world is ended. 

And the Turkish women for’ard 
Were frightened and behorror’d ; 

And, shrieking and bewildering. 

The mothers clutched their children ; 

The men sung, “ Allah Illah ! 

Mashallah Bismillah ! ” 

As the warring waters doused them. 

And splashed them and soused them ; 

And they called upon the Prophet, 

And thought but little of it. 

Then all the fleas in Jewry 
Jumped up and bit like fury ; 

And the progeny of Jacob 
Did on the main-deck wake up 
(I wot those greasy Rabbins 
Would never pay for cabins) ; 

And each man moaned and jabbered in 
His filthy Jewish gabardine. 

In woe and lamentation. 

And howling consternation. 

And the splashing water drenches 
Their dirty brats and wenches ; 

And they crawl from bales and benches. 

In a hundred thousand stenches. 


664 JOURNEY FROM CORNHILL TO CAIRO 


This was the White Squall famous 
Which latterly o’ercame us, 

And which all will well remember 
On the 28th September : 

When a Prussian Captain of Lancers 
(Those tight-laced, whiskered prancers) 

Came on the deck astonished, 

By that wild squall admonished, 

And wondering cried, “ Potztausend ! 

Wie ist der Sturm jetzt brausend ! ” 

And looked at Captain Lewis, 

Who calmly stood and blew his 
Cigar in all the bustle, 

And scorned the tempest’s tussle. 

And oft we’ve thought thereafter 
How he beat the storm to laughter ; 

For well he knew his vessel 
With that vain wind could wrestle ; 

And when a wreck we thought her 
And doomed ourselves to slaughter, 

How gaily he fought her. 

And through the hubbub brought her, 

And, as the tempest caught her. 

Cried, “ George ! some Brand y-and-water ! ” 

And when, its force expended. 

The harmless storm was ended, 

And, as the sunrise splendid 
Came blushing o’er the sea ; 

I thought, as day was breaking, 

My little girls were waking. 

And smiling, and making 
A prayer at home for me. 


CHAPTER X 


TELMESSUS—BEYROUT 

T here should have been a poet in our company to describe 
that charming little bay of Glaucus, into which we entered 
on the 26th of September, in the first steamboat that ever 
disturbed its beautiful waters. You can’t put down in prose that 
delicious episode of natural poetry; it ought to be done in a 
symphony, full of sweet melodies and swelling harmonies ; or sung 
in a strain of clear crystal iambics, such as Milnes knows how to 
write. A mere map, drawn in words, gives the mind no notion of 
that exquisite nature. What do mountains become in type, or rivers 
in Mr. Vizetelly’s best brevier 1 Here lies the sweet bay, gleaming 
peaceful in the rosy sunshine : green islands dip here and there in its 
waters : purple mountains swell circling round it ; and towards them, 
rising from the bay, stretches a rich green plain, fruitful with herbs 
and various foliage, in the midst of which the white houses twinkle. 
I can see a little minaret, and some spreading palm-trees ; but, beyond 
these, the description would answer as well for Bantry Bay as for 
Makri. You could write so far, nay, much more particularly and 
grandly, without seeing the place at all, and after reading Beaufort’s 
“ Caramania,” which gives you not the least notion of it. 

Suppose the great Hydrographer of the Admiralty himself can’t 
describe it, who surveyed the place ; suppose Mr. Fellowes, who 
discovered it afterwards — suppose, I say. Sir John Fellowes, Knt., 
can’t do it (and I defy any man of imagination to get an impression 
of Telmessus from his book) — can you, vain man, hope to try? 
The effect of the artist, as I take it, ought to be, to produce upon 
his hearer’s mind, by his art, an effect something similar to that 
produced on his own by the sight of the natural object. Only 
music, or the best poetry, can do this. Keats’s “Ode to the 
Grecian Urn” is the best description I know of that sweet old 
silent ruin of Telmessus. After you have once seen it, the remem- 
brance remains with you, like a tune from Mozart, which he seems 
to have caught out of heaven, and which rings sweet harmony in your 
ears for ever after ! It’s a benefit for all after life ! You have but 
to shut your eyes, and think, and recall it, and the delightful vision 


666 JOURNEY FROM CORNHILL TO CAIRO 


comes smiling back, to your order ! — the divine air — the delicious 
little pageant, which nature set before you on this lucky day. 

Here is the entry made in the note-book on the eventful day : — 
“ In the morning steamed into the bay of Glaucus — landed at Makri 
— cheerful old desolate village — theatre by the beautiful seashore — 
great fertility, oleanders — a palm-tree in the midst of the village, 
spreading out like a Sultan’s aigrette — sculptured caverns, or tombs, 
up the mountain — camels over the bridge.” 

Perhaps it is best for a man of fancy to make his own landscape 
out of these materials : to group the couched camels under the plane- 
trees ; the little crowd of wandering ragged heathens come down to 
the calm water, to behold the nearing steamer ; to fancy a mountain, 
in the sides of which some scores of tombs are rudely carved ; pillars 
and porticos, and Doric entablatures. But it is of the little theatre 
that he must make the most beautiful picture — a charming little 
place of festival, lying out on the shore, and looking over the sweet 
bay and the swelling purple islands. No theatre-goer ever looked 
out on a fairer scene. It encourages poetry, idleness, delicious 
sensual reverie. 0 Jones ! friend of my heart ! would you not like 
to be a white-robed Greek, lolling languidly, on the cool benches 
here, and pouring compliments (in the Ionic dialect) into the rosy 
ears of Neaera? Instead of Jones, your name should be lonides ; 
instead of a silk hat, you should wear a chaplet of roses in your 
hair : you would not listen to the choruses they were singing on the 
stage, for the voice of the fair one would be whispering a rendezvous 
for the mesonuktiais horais, and my lonides would have no ear for 
aught beside. Yonder, in the mountain, they would carve a Doric 
cave temple, to receive your urn when all was done ; and you would 
be accompanied thither by a dirge of the surviving lonidm. The 
caves of the dead are empty now, however, and their place knows 
them not any more among the festal haunts of the living. But, by 
way of supplying the choric melodies sung here in old time, one of 
our companions mounted on the scene and spouted, 

“ My name is Norval.” 

On the same day we lay to for a while at another ruined 
theatre, that of Antiphilos. The Oxford men, fresh with recollec- 
tions of the little-go, bounded away up the hill on which it lies to 
the ruin, measured the steps of the theatre, and calculated the 
width of the scene ; while others, less active, watched them with 
telescopes from the ship’s sides, as they plunged in and out of the 
stones and hollows. 

Two days after the scene was quite changed. We were out 
of sight of the classical country, and lay in St. George’s Bay, behind 


BEYROUT 


667 

a huge mountain, upon which St. George fought the dragon, and 
rescued the lovely Lady Sabra, the King of Babylon’s daughter. 
The Turkish fleet was lying about us, commanded by that Halil 
Pasha whose two children the two last Sultans murdered. The 
crimson flag, with the star and crescent, floated at tlie stern of his 
ship. Our diplomatist put on his uniform and cordons, and paid 
his Excellency a visit. He spoke in rapture, when he returned, 
of the beauty and order of the ship, and the urbanity of the infidel 
Admiral. He sent us bottles of ancient Cyprus wine to drink : and 
the captain of her Majesty’s ship Trump ^ alongside which we were 
lying, confirmed that good opinion of the Capitan Pasha which the 
reception of the above present led us to entertain, by relating many 

instances of his friendliness and hospitalities. Captain G said 

the Turkish ships Avere as Avell manned, as well kept, and as well 
manoeuvred, as any vessels in. any service ; and intimated a desire 
to command a Turkish seventy-four, and a perfect willingness to 
fight her against a French ship of the same size. But I heartily 
trust he will neither embrace the Mahometan opinions, nor be called 
upon to engage any seventy-four whatever. If he do, let us hope 
he will have his own men to fight with. If the crew of the Trump 
were all like the crew of the captain’s boat, they need fear no two 
hundred and fifty men out of any country, with any Joinville at 
their head. We were carried on shore by this boat. For two 
years, during which the Trump had been lying off Beyrout, none of 
the men but these eight had ever set foot on shore. Mustn’t it be 
a happy life % We were landed at the busy quay of Beyrout, flanked 
by the castle that the fighting old commodore half battered down. 

Along the Beyrout quays civilisation flourishes under the flags 
of the consuls, which are streaming out over the yellow buildings in 
the clear air. Hither she brings from England her produce of 
marine-stores and woollens, her crockeries, her portable soups, and 
her bitter ale. Hither she 'has brought politeness, and the last 
modes from Paris. They were exhibited in the person of a pretty 
lady, superintending the great French store, and who, seeing a 
stranger sketching on the quay, sent forward a man Avith a chair to 
accommodate that artist, and greeted him Avith a bow and a smile 
such as only can be found in France. Then she fell to talking with 
a young French officer Avith a beard, who was greatly smitten with 
her. They were making love just as they do on the Boulevard. 
An Arab porter left his bales, and the camel he was unloading, to 
come and look at the sketch. Two stumpy flat-faced Turkish 
soldiers, in red caps and white undresses, peered over the paper. 
A noble little Lebanonian girl, with a deep yelloAV face, and curly 
dun-coloured hair, and a blue tattooed chin, and for all clothing a 


668 JOURNEY FROM CORNHILL TO CAIRO 


little ragged shift of blue cloth, stood by like a little statue, holding 
her urn, and stared with wondering brown eyes. How magnificently 
blue the water was ! — how bright the flags and buildings, as they 
shone above it, and the lines of the rigging tossing in the bay ! 
The white crests of the blue waves jumped and sparkled like quick- 
silver; the shadows were as broad and cool as the lights were 
brilliant and rosy ; the battered old towers of the commodore looked 
quite cheerful in the delicious atmosphere ; and the mountains 
beyond were of an amethyst colour. The French officer and the 
lady went on chattering quite happily about love, the last new 
bonnet, or the battle of Isly, or the “ Juif Errant.” How neatly 
her gown and sleeves fitted her pretty little person ^ We had not 
seen a woman for a month, except honest Mrs. Flanigan, the 
• stewardess, and the ladies of our party, and the tips of the noses 
of the Constantinople beauties as they passed by leering from their 
yakmacs, waddling and plapping in their odious yellow papooshes. 

And this day is to be marked with a second white stone, for 
having given the lucky writer of the present, occasion to behold a 
second beauty. This was a native Syrian damsel, who bore the 
sweet name of Mariam. So it w’as she stood as two of us (I 
mention the number for fear of scandal) took her picture. 

So it was that the good-natured black cook looked behind her 
young mistress, with a benevolent grin, that only the admirable 
Leslie could paint. 

Mariam was the sister of the young guide whom we hired to 
show us through the town, and to let us be cheated in the purchase 
of gilt scarfs and handkerchiefs, which strangers think proper to 
buy. And before the following authentic drawing could be made, 
many were the stratagems the wily artists were obliged to employ, 
to subdue the shyness of the little Mariam. In the first place, she 
would stand behind the door (from which in the darkness her 
beautiful black eyes gleamed out like penny tapers) ; nor could the 
entreaties of her brother and mamma bring her from that hiding- 
place. In order to conciliate the latter, we began by making a 
picture of her too — that is, not of her, who was an enormous old 
fat woman in yellow, quivering all over with strings of pearls, and 
necklaces of sequins, and other ornaments, the which descended 
from her neck, and down her ample stomacher ; we did not depict 
that big old woman, who would have been frightened at an accurate 
representation of her own enormity ; but an ideal being, all grace 
and beauty, dressed in her costume, and still simpering before me in 
my sketch-book like a lady in a book of fiishions. 

This portrait was shown to the old woman, who handed it over 
to the black cook, who, grinning, carried it to little Mariam — and 


A PORTRAIT 


669 


the result was, that the young creature stepped forward, and sub- 
mitted ; and has come over to Europe as you see. 

A very snug and happy family did this of Mariam’s appear to 
be. If you could judge by all the laughter and giggling, by the 
splendour of the women’s attire, by the neatness of the little house, 
prettily decorated with arabesque paintings, neat mats, and gay 
carpets, they were a family well to do in the Beyrout world, and 
lived with as much comfort as any Europeans. They had one book ; 
and, on the wall of the principal apartment, a black picture of the 
Virgin, whose name is borne 
by pretty Mariam. 

The camels and the sol- 
diers, the bazaars and khans, 
the fountains and awnings, 
which chequer, with such 
delightful variety of light 
and shade, the alleys and 
markets of an Oriental town, 
are to be seen in Beyrout 
in perfection ; and an artist 
might here employ himself 
for months with advantage 
and pleasure. A new cos- 
tume was here added to 
the motley and picturesque 
assembly of dresses. This 
was the dress of the blue- 
veiled women from the Le- 
banon, stalking solemnly 
through the markets, with 
huge horns, near a yard high, 
on their foreheads. For thou- 
sands of years, since the time 
the Hebrew prophets wrote, 
the Lebanon. 



these horns have so been exalted 


At night Captain Lewis gave a splendid ball and supper to 
the Trump. We had the Trump band to perform the musics 
and a grand sight it was to see the captain himself enthusiastically 
leading on the drum. Blue lights and rockets were burned from the 
yards of our ship ; which festive signals were answered presently 
from the Trump., and from another English vessel in the harbour. 

They must have struck the Capitan Pasha with wonder, for he 
sent his secretary on board of* us to inquire what the fireworks 


670 JOURNEY FROM CORNHILL TO CAIRO 


meant. And the worthy Turk had scarcely put his foot on the 
deck, when he found himself seized round the waist by one of 
the Trump officers, and whirling round the deck in a waltz, to his 
own amazement, and the huge delight of the company. His face 
of wonder and gravity, as he went on twirling, could not have been 
exceeded by that of a dancing dervish at Scutari ; and the manner in 
which he managed to enjamber the waltz excited universal applause. 

I forgot whether he accommodated himself to European ways 
so much further as to drink champagne at supper-time ; to say that 
he did would be telling tales out of school, and might interfere with 
the future advancement of that jolly dancing Turk. 

We made acquaintance with another of the Sultan’s subjects, 
who, I fear, will have occasion to doubt of the honour of the English 
nation, after the foul treachery with which he was treated. 

Among the occupiers of the little bazaar watchboxes, vendors 
of embroidered handkerchiefs and other articles of showy Eastern 
haberdashery, was a good-looking neat young fellow, who spoke 
English very fluently, and was particularly attentive to all the 
passengers on board our ship. This gentleman was not only a 
pocket-handkerchief merchant in the bazaar, but earned a further 
livelihood by letting out mules and donkeys ; and he kept a small 
lodging-house, or inn, for travellers^ as we were informed. 

No wonder he spoke good English, and was exceedingly polite and 
well bred; for the worthy man had passed some time in England, and 
in the best society too. That humble haberdasher at Beyrout had 
been a lion here, at the very best houses of the great people, and had 
actually made his appearance at Windsor, where he was received as a 
Syrian Prince, and treated with great hospitality by Royalty itself 

I don’t know what waggish propensity moved one of the officers 
of the Trump) to say that there was an equerry of his Royal 
Highness the Prince on board, and to point me out as the dignifled 
personage in question. So the Syrian Prince was introduced to the 
Royal equerry, and a great many compliments passed between us. 

I even had the audacity to state that on my very last interview 
with my Royal master. His Royal Highness had said, “ Colonel 
Titmarsh, when you go to Beyrout, you will make special inquiries 
regarding my interesting friend Cogia Hassan.” 

Poor Cogia Hassan (I forget whether that was his name, but it 
is as good as another) was overpowered with this Royal message ; 
and we had an intimate conversation together, at which the waggish 
officer of the Trump assisted with the greatest glee. 

But see the consequences of deceit ! The next day, as we were 
getting under way, who should come on board but my friend the 
Syrian Prince, most eager for a last interview with the Windsor 


A SYRIAN PRINCE 


671 


equerry ; and he begged me to carry his protestations of unalterable 
fidelity to the gracious consort of her Majesty. Nor was this all. 
Cogia Hassan actually produced a great box of sweetmeats, of which 
he begged my Excellency to accept, and a little figure of a doll dressed 
in the costume of Lebanon. Then the punishment of imposture 
began to be felt severely by me. How to accept the poor devil’s 
sweetmeats How to refuse them 1 And as we know that one fib 
leads to another, so I was obliged to support the first falsehood by 
another ; and putting on a dignified air — “ Cogia Hassan,” says I, 
“I am surprised you don’t know the habits of the British Court 
better, and are not aware that our gracious master solemnly forbids 
his servants to accept any sort of backsheesh upon our travels.” 

So Prince Cogia Hassan went over the side with his chest of 
sweetmeats, but insisted on leaving the doll, which may be worth 
twopence-halfpenny ; of which, and of the costume of the women of 
Lebanon, the following is an accurate likeness : — 



CHAPTER XI 


A DAY AND NIGHT IN SYRIA 

W HEN, after being for five whole weeks at sea, with a 
general belief that at the end of a few days the marine 

malady leaves you for good, you find that a brisk wind 

and a heavy rolling swell create exactly the same inward effects 
which they occasioned at the very commencement of the voyage — 
you begin to fancy that you are unfairly dealt with : and I, for my 
part, had thought of complaining to the Company of this atrocious 
violation of the rules of their prospectus ; but we were perpetually 
coming to anchor in various ports, at which intervals of peace and 
good-humour were restored to us. 

On the 3rd of October our cable rushed with a huge rattle into 
the blue sea before Jaffa, at a distance of considerably more than a 

mile off the town, which lay before us very clear, with the flags of 

the consuls flaring in the bright sky and making a cheerful and 
hospitable show. The houses a great heap of sun-baked stones, 
surmounted here and there by minarets and countless little white- 
washed domes ; a few date-trees spread out their fan-like heads over 
these dull-looking buildings ; long sands stretched away on either 
side, with low purple hills behind them ; we could see specks of 
camels crawling over these yellow plains ; and those persons who 
were about to land had the leisure to behold the sea-spray flashing 
over the sands, and over a heap of black rocks which lie before the 
entry to the town. The swell is very great, the passage between 
the rocks narrow, and the danger sometimes considerable. So the 
guide began to entertain the ladies and other passengers in the huge 
country boat which brought us from the steamer with an agreeable 
story of a lieutenant and eight seamen of one of her Majesty’s ships, 
who were upset, dashed to pieces, and drowmed upon these rocks, 
through which two men and two boys, with a very moderate portion 
of clothing, each standing and pulling half an oar — there were but 
two oars between them, and another by way of rudder — were 
endeavouring to guide us. 

When the danger of the rocks and surf was passed, came another 
danger of the hideous brutes in brown skins and the briefest shirts. 


JAFFA 


673 

who came towards the boat, straddling through the water with out- 
stretched arms, grinning and yelling their Arab invitations to mount 
their shoulders. I think these fellows frightened the ladies still 
more than the rocks and the surf ; but the poor creatures were 
obliged to submit ; and, trembling, were accommodated somehow 
upon the mahogany backs of these ruthans, carried through the 
shallows, and flung up to a ledge before the city gate, where crowds 
more of dark people were swarming, howling after their fashion. 
The gentlemen, meanwhile, were having arguments about the eternal 
backslieesh with the roaring Arab boatmen ; and I recall with 
wonder and delight especially, the curses and screams of one small 
and extremely loud-lunged fellow, who expressed discontent at 
receiving a flve, instead of a six-piastre piece. But how is one to 
know, without possessing the language'? Both coins are made of a 
greasy pewtery sort of tin ; and I thought the biggest was the most 
valuable : but the fellow sliowed a sense of their value, and a dis- 
position seemingly to cut any man’s tliroat who did not understand 
it. Men’s throats have been cut for a less difference before now. 

Being cast upon the ledge, the first care of our gallantry was to ' 
look after the ladies, who were scared and astonished by the naked 
savage brutes, who were shouldering the poor things to and fro ; 
and bearing them through these and a dark archway, we came into 
a street crammed witli donkeys and their packs and drivers, and 
towering camels with leering eyes looking into the second-floor 
rooms, and huge splay feet, through which mesdames et mesde- 
moiselles were to be conducted. We made a rush at the first open 
door, and passed comfortably under the heels of some horses gathered 
under the arched court, and up a stone staircase, which turned out 
to be that of the Russian consul’s house. His people welcomed us 
most cordially to his abode, and the ladies and the luggage (objects 
of our solicitude) were led up many stairs and across several terraces 
to a most comfortable little room, under a dome of its own, where 
the rei)resentative of Russia sat. Women with brown faces and 
draggle-tailed coats and turbans, and wondering eyes, and no stays, 
and blue beads and gold coins hanging round their necks, came to 
gaze, as they passed, upon the fair neat Englishwomen. Blowsy 
black cooks puffing over fires and the strangest pots and pans on the 
terraces, children paddling about in long striped robes, interrupted 
their sports or labours to come and stare; and the consul, in his 
cool domed chamber, with a lattice overlooking the sea, with clean 
mats, and pictures of the Emperor, the Virgin, and St. George, 
received the strangers with smiling couilesies, regaling the ladies 
with pomegranates and sugar, tlie gentlemen with pipes of tobacco, 
whereof the fragrant tubes were three yards long. 

5 2 u 


674 JOURNEY FROM CORNHILL TO CAIRO 


The Russian amenities concluded, we left the ladies still under 
the comfortable cool dome of the Russian consulate, and went to 
see our own representative. The streets of the little town are 
neither agreeable to horse nor foot travellers. Many of the streets 
are mere flights of rough steps, leading abruptly into private houses : 
you pass under archways and passages numberless ; a steep dirty 
labyrinth of stone-vaulted stables and sheds occupies the ground- 
floor of the habitations ; and you pass from flat to flat of the 
terraces; at various irregular corners of which, little chambers, 
with little private domes, are erected, and the people live seemingly 
as much upon the terrace as in the room. 

We found the English consul in a queer little arched chamber, 
with a strange old picture of the King’s arms to decorate one side 
of it : and here the consul, a demure old man, dressed in red flowing 
robes, with a feeble janissary bearing a shabby tin-mounted staff, or 
mace, to denote his office, received such of our nation as came to 
him for hospitality. He distributed pipes and coffee to all and 
every one ; he made us a present of his house and all his beds for 
the night, and went himself to lie quietly on the terrace ; and for 
all this hospitality he declined to receive any reward from us, and 
said he was but doing his duty in taking us in. This worthy man, 
I thought, must doubtless be very well paid by our Government for 
making such sacrifices ; but it appears that he does not get one 
single farthing, and that the greater number of our Levant consuls 
are paid at a similar rate of easy remuneration. If we have bad 
consular agents, have we a right to complain 1 If the worthy 
gentlemen cheat occasionally, can we reasonably be angry ? But in 
travelling through these countries, English people, who don’t take 
into consideration the miserable poverty and scanty resources of 
their country, and are apt to brag and be proud of it, have their 
vanity hurt by seeing the representatives of every nation but their 
own well and decently maintained, and feel ashamed at sitting down 
under the shabby protection of our mean consular flag. 

The active young men of our party had been on shore long 
before us, and seized upon all the available horses in the town ; 
but we relied upon a letter from Halil Pasha, enjoining all governors 
and pashas to help us in all ways : and hearing we were the bearers 
of this document, the cadi and vice-governor of Jaffa came to wait 
upon the head of our party ; declared that it was his delight and 
honour to set eyes upon us ; that he wovdd do everything in the 
world to serve us; that there were no horses, unluckily, but he 
would send and get some in three hours; and so left us with a 
world of grinning bows and many choice compliments from one side 
to the other, which came to each filtered through an obsequious 


THE CADrs DIVAN 675 

interpreter. But hours passed, and the clatter of horses’ hoofs 
was not heard. We had our dinner of eggs and flaps of bread, and 
the sunset gun fired : we had our ])ipes and coffee again, and the 
niglit fell. Is this man throwing dirt upon us 'i we began to think. 
Is he laughing at our beards, and are our mothers’ graves ill-treated 
by this smiling swindling cadi 'I We determined to go and seek 
in his own den this shuffling dispenser of infidel justice. This time 
we would be no more bamboozled by compliments ; but we would 
use the language of stern expostulation, and, being roused, would 
let the rascal hear the roar of the indignant British lion ; so we 
rose up in our wrath. The poor consul got a lamp for us with a 
bit of wax candle, such as I wonder his means could aftbrd ; the 
shabby janissary marched ahead with his tin mace ; the two 
laquais-de-place, that two of our company had hired, stepped 
forward, each with an old sabre, and we went clattering and 
stumbling down the streets of the town, in order to seize upon this 
cadi in his own divan. I was glad, for my part (though outwardly 
majestic and indignant in demeanour), that the horses had not come, 
and that we had a chance of seeing this little queer glimpse of 
Oriental life, which the magistrate’s faithlessness procured for us. 

As piety forbids the Turks to eat during the weary daylight 
hours of the Ramazan, they spend their time profitably in sleeping 
until th-e welcome sunset, when the town wakens : all the lanterns 
are lighted up ; all the pipes begin to i)uff, and the narghiMs to 
bubble ; all the sour-milk-and-sherbet-men begin to yell out the 
excellence of their wares ; all the frying-pans in the little dirty 
cookshops begin to friz, and the pots to send forth a steam : and 
through this dingy, ragged, bustling, beggarly, cheerful scene, we 
began now to march towards the Bow Street of Jaffa. We bustled 
through a crowded narrow arcliway which led to the cadi’s police- 
office, entered the little room, atrociously perfumed with musk, 
and passing by the rail-board, where the common sort stood, 
mounted the stage upon which his worship and friends sat, and 
squatted down on the divans in stern and silent dignity. His 
honour ordered us coffee, his countenance evidently showing consider- 
able alarm. A black slave, whose duty seemed to be to prepare 
this beverage in a side-room with a furnace, prepared for each of 
us about a teaspoon ful of the liquor : his worship’s clerk, I pre- 
sume, a tall Turk of a noble aspect, presented it to us ; and having 
lapped up the little modicum of drink, the British lion began to 
speak. 

All the other travellers (said the lion with perfect reason) have 
good horses and are gone; the Russians have got horses, the 
Spaniards have horses, the English have horses, but we, we vizirs 


676 JOURNEY FROM CORNHILL TO CAIRO 


in our country, coming with letters of Halil Pasha, are laughed at, 
spit upon ! Are Halil Paslia’s letters dirt, that you attend to them 
in this way ? Are British lions dogs that you treat them so '? — and 
so on. This speech with many vaiiations was made on our side 
for a quarter of an hour; and we finally swore that unless the 
horses were forthcoming we would write to Halil Pasha the next 
morning, and to his Excellency the English Minister at the Sublime 
Porte. Then you should have heard the chorus of Turks in reply ; 
a dozen voices rose up from the divan, shouting, screaming, ejacu- 
lating, expectorating (the Arabic spoken language seems to require 
a great employment of the two latter oratorical methods), and 
uttering what the meek interpreter did not translate to us, but 
what I dare say were by no means complimentary phrases towards 
us and our nation. Finally, the palaver concluded by the cadi 
declaring that by the will of Heaven horses should be forthcoming 
at three o’clock in the morning; and tliat if not, why, then, we 
might write to Halil Pasha. 

This posed us, and we rose up and haughtily took leave. ' I 
should like to know that fellow’s real opinion of us lions very much : 
and especially to have had the translation of the speeches of a huge- 
breeched turbaned roaring infidel, who looked and spoke as if lie 
would have liked to fling us all into the sea, which was hoarsely 
murmuring under our windows an accompaniment to the concert * 
within. 

We then marched through the bazaars, tliat were lofty and grim, 
and pretty full of people. In a desolate broken building, some 
hundreds of children were playing and singing ; in many corners sat 
parties over their water-pipes, one of whom every now and then 
would begin twanging out a most queer chant ; others there were 
playing at casino — a crowd squatted around the squalling gamblers, 
and talking and looking on with eager interest. In one place of the 
bazaar we found a hundred people at least listening to a story-teller 
who delivered his tale with excellent action, voice, and volubility : 
in another they were playing a sort of thimble-rig with coffee-cups, 
all intent upon the game, and the player himself very Avild lest one 
of our party, who had discovered where the pea lay, should tell the 
company. The devotion and energy with Avhich all these pastimes 
were pursued, struck me as much as anything. These people have 
been playing thimble-rig and casino; that story-teller has been 
shouting his tale of Antar for forty years ; and they are just as 
happy Avith this amusement now as when first they tried it. Is 
there no ennui in the Eastern countries, and are blue-devils not 
allowed to go abroad there 1 

From the bazaars Ave Avent to see the house of Mustapha, said 


A NIGHT IN SYRIA 


677 


to be tlie best house and the greatest man of Jaffa. But the great 
man had absconded suddenly, and had fled into Egypt. The Sultan 
had made a demand upon him for sixteen thousand purses, £80,000 
— Mustapha retired — the Sultan pounced down upon his house, and 
his goods, his horses and his mules. His harem was desolate. Mr. 
Milnes could have written six affecting poems, had he been with us, 
on the dark loneliness of that violated sanctuary. We passed from 
hall to hall, terrace to terrace — a few fellows were slumbering on the 
naked floors, and scarce turned as we went by them. We entered 
Mustapha’s particular divan — there was the raised floor, but no 
bearded friends squatting away the night of Ramazan ; there was 
the little coffee furnace, but where was the slave and the coffee and 
the glowing embers of the pipes? Mustapha’s favourite passages 
from the Koran were still painted up on the walls, but nobody was 
the wiser for them. We walked over a sleeping negro, and opened 
the windows which looked into his gardens. The horses and 
donkeys, the camels and mules were picketed there below, but 
where is the said Mustapha? From the frying-pan of the Porte, has 
he not fallen into the fire of Mehemet Ali ? And which is best, to 
broil or to fry? If it be but to read the “Arabian Nights” again 
on getting home, it is good to have made this little voyage and seen 
these strange places and faces. 

Then we went out through the arched lowering gateway of the 
town into the plain beyond, and that was another famous and 
brilliant scene of the “Arabian Nights.” The heaven shone with a 
marvellous brilliancy — the plain disappeared far in the haze — the 
towers and battlements of the town rose black against the sky — old 
outlandish trees rose up here and there — clumps of camels were 
couched in the rare herbage — dogs were baying about — groups of 
men lay sleeping under their haicks round about — round about the 
tall gates many lights were twinkling — and they brought us water- 
pipes and sherbet — and we wondered to think that London was only 
three weeks off. 

Then came the night at the consul’s. The poor demure old 
gentleman brought out his mattresses ; and the ladies sleeping round 
on the divans, we lay down quite happy ; and I for my part in- 
tended to make as delightful dreams as Alnaschar; but — lo, the 
delicate mosquito sounded his horn : the active flea jumped up, and 
came to feast on Christian flesh (the Eastern flea bites more bitterly 
than the most savage bug in Christendom), and the bug — oh, the 
accursed ! Why was he made ? What duty has that infamous 
ruffian to perform in the world, save to make people wretched? 
Only Bulwer in his most pathetic style could describe the miseries 
of that night — the moaning, the groaning, the cursing, the tumbling. 


()78 JOURNEY FROM CORNHILL TO CAIRO 


the blistering, the infamous despair and degradation ! I heard all 
tlie cocks in Jaffa crow ; the children crying, and the mothers 
hushing them ; the donkeys braying fitfully in the moonlight ; at 
last I heard the clatter of hoofs below, and the hailing of men. It 
was three o’clock, the horses were actually come ; nay, there were 
camels likewise ; asses and mules, pack-saddles and drivers, all 
bustling together under the moonlight in the cheerful street — and 
the first night in Syria was over. 


CHAPTER XII 


FROM JAFFA TO JERUSALEM 

I T took an hour or more to get our little caravan into marching 
order, to accommodate all the packs to the horses, the horses to 
the riders ; to see the ladies comfortably placed in their litter, 
witli a sleek and large black mule fore and aft, a groom to each 
mule, and a tall and exceedingly good-natured and mahogany- 
coloured infidel to walk by the side of the carriage, to balance it as 
it swayed to and fro, and to offer his back as a step to the inmates 
whenever they were minded to ascend or alight. These three 
fellows, fasting through the Ramazan, and over as rough a road, for 
the greater part, as ever shook mortal bones, performed their fourteen 
hours’ walk of near forty miles with the most admirable courage, 
alacrity, and good-humour. They once or twice drank w^ater on the 
march, and so far infringed the rule ; but they refused all bread or 
edible refreshment offered to them, and tugged on with an energy that 
the best camel, and I am sure the best Christian, might envy. What 
a lesson of good-humoured endurance it was to certain Pall Mall Sar- 
danapaluses, who grumble if club sofa cushions are not soft enough ! 

If I could write sonnets at leisure, I would like to chronicle in 
fourteen lines my sensations on finding myself on a high Turkish 
saddle, with a pair of fire-shovel stirrups and worsted reins, red 
padded saddle-cloth, and innumerable tags, fringes, glass beads, ends 
of rope, to decorate the harness of the horse, the gallant steed on 
which I was about to gallop into Syrian life. What a figure we 
cut in the moonlight, and how they would have stared in the 
Strand ! Ay, or in Leicestershire, where I warrant such a horse 
and rider are not often visible ! The shovel stirrups are deucedly 
short ; the clumsy leathers cut the shins of some equestrians 
abominably ; you sit over your horse as it were on a tower, from 
which the descent would be very easy, but for the big peak of the 
saddle. A good way for the inexperienced is to put a stick or 
umbrella across the saddle peak again, so that it is next to im- 
possible to go over your horse’s neck. I found this a vast comfort 
in going down the hills, and recommend it conscientiously to other 
dear simple brethren of the city. 


cm JOURNEY FROM CORNHILL TO CAIRO 


Peaceful men, we did not ornament our girdles with pistols, 
yataglians, &c., such as some pilgrims appeared to bristle all over 
with ; and as a lesson to such rash people, a story may be told 
which was narrated to us at Jei’usalem, and carries a wholesome 
moral. The Honourable Hoggin Armer, who was lately travelling 
in the East, wore about his stomach two brace of pistols, of such 
exquisite finish and make, that a Sheikh, in the Jericho country, 
robbed him merely for tlie sake of the pistols. I don’t know 
whether he has told the story to his friends at home. 

Another story about Sheikhs may here be told a j)Topos. That 
celebrated Irish Peer, Lord Oldgent (who was distinguished in the 
Buckinghamshire Dragoons), having paid a sort of l^lackmail to the 
Sheikh of Jericho country, was suddenly set upon by another Sheikh, 
who claimed to be the real Jerichonian governor ; and these twins 
quarrelled over the body of Lord Oldgent, as the widows for the 
innocent baby before Solomon. There Avas enough for both — but 
these digressions are interminable. 

The party got under Avay at near four o’clock : the ladies in the 
litter, the French feinme-de-chamhre manfully caracoling on a grey 
horse ; the cavaliers, like your humble servant, on their high saddles ; 
the domestics, flunkeys, guides, and grooms, on all sorts of animals, 
— some fourteen in all. Add to these, two most grave and stately 
Arabs in white beards, white turbans, white haicks and raiments ; 
sabres curling round their military thighs, and immense long guns 
at their backs. More venerable warriors I never saAv ; they went 
by the side of the litter soberly prancing. When we emerged from 
the steep clattering streets of the city into the grey plains, lighted 
by the moon and starlight, these militaries rode oinvard, leading the 
way through the huge avenues of strange diabolical-looking prickly 
pears (plants that look as if they had grown in Tartarus), by which 
the first mile or two of route from the city is bounded ; and as the 
dawn arose before us, exhibiting first a streak of grey, then of green, 
then of red in the sky, it Avas fine to see these martial figures defined 
against the rising light. The sight of tliat little cavalcade, and of 
the nature around it, Avill always remain Avith me, I think, as one 
of the freshest and most delightful sensations I have enjoyed since 
the day I first saw Calais pier. It Avas full day Avhen they gave 
their horses a drink at a large ]n'etty Oriental fountain, and then 
presently we entered the open i)lain — the famous plain of Sharon — 
so fruitful in roses once, now hardly cultivated, but always beautiful 
and noble. 

Here presently, in the distance, we saAv another cavalcade 
pricking over the i)lain. Our tAvo Avhite Avarriors spread to the 
right and left, and galloped to reconnoitre. We, too, put our steeds 


RAMLEH 


681 


to the canter, and handling onr umbrellas as Richard did his lance 
against Saladin, went uiKlannted to challenge this caravan. The 
fact is, we could distinguish that it was formed of the i)arty of our 
pious friends the Poles, and we hailed them with cheerful shouting, 
and presently the two caravans joined company, and scoured the 
plain at the rate of near four miles per hour. The horse-master, a 
courier of this company, rode three miles for our one. He was a 
broken-nosed Arab, with pistols, a sabre, a fusee, a yellow Damascus 
cloth flapping over his head, and his nose ornamented with diachylon. 
He rode a hog-necked grey Arab, bristling over witli harness, and 
jumped, and whirled, and reared, and halted, to the admiration 
of all. 

Scarce had the diachylonian Arab finished his evolutions, when 
lo ! yet another cloud of dust was seen, and another party of armed 
and glittering horsemen ap])eared. They, too, were led by an Arab, 
who was followed by two janissaries, with silver maces shining in 
the sun. ’Twas the party of the new American Consul-General of 
Syria and Jerusalem, hastening, to that city, with the inferior 
consuls of Randeh and Jaffa to escort him. He expects to see 
the Millennium in three years, and has accepted the office of consul 
at Jerusalem, so as to be on the spot in readiness. 

When the diachylon Arab saw the American Arab, he straight- 
way galloped his steed towards him, took his pipe, which he 
delivered at his adversary in guise of a jereed, and galloped round 
and round, and in and out, and there and back again, as in a play 
of war. The American replied in a similar playful ferocity — the two 
warriors made a little tournament for us there on the plains before 
Jaffa, in the which diachylon, being a little worsted, challenged 
his adversary to a race, and fled away on his grey, the American 
following on his bay. Here poor sticking-plaster was again worsted, 
the Yankee contemptuously riding round him, and then declining 
further exercise. 

What more could mortal man want? A troop of knights and 
paladins could have done no more. In no page of Walter Scott 
have 1 read a scene more fair and sparkling. The sober warriors 
of our escort did not join in the gambols of the young men. There 
they rode soberly, in their white turbans, by their ladies’ litter, 
their long guns rising up behind them. 

There was no lack of company along the road ; donkeys number- 
less, camels by two and threes ; now a mule-driver, trudging along 
the road, chanting a most queer melody ; now a lady, in white 
veil, black mask, and yellow papooshes, bestriding her ass, and 
followed by her husband, — met us on the way ; and most people 
gave a salutation. Presently we saw Ramleh, in a smoking mist, 


682 JOURNEY FROM CORNHILL TO CAIRO 


on the plain before us, flanked to the right by a tall lonely tower, 
that might have held the bells of some moutier of Caen or Evreux. 
As we entered, about three hours and a half after starting, among 
the white domes and stone houses of the little town, we passed the 
place of tombs. Two women were sitting on one of them, — the one 
bending her head towards the stone, and rocking to and fro, and 
moaning out a very sweet pitiful lamentation. The American 
consul invited us to breakfast at the house of his subaltern, the 
hospitable one-eyed Armenian, who represents the United States 
at Jaffa. The stars and stripes were flaunting over his terraces, 
to which we ascended, leaving our horses to the care of a multitude 
of roaring ragged Arabs beneath_, who took charge of and fed the 
animals^ though I can’t say in the least why ; but, in the same 
way as getting off my horse on entering Jerusalem, I gave the rein 
into the hand of the first person near me, and have never heard 
of the worthy brute since. At the American consul’s we were 
served first with rice soup in pishpash, flavoured with cinnamon 
and spice ; then with boiled mutton, then with stewed ditto and 
tomatoes ; tlien with fowls swimming in grease ; then with brown 
ragouts belaboured with onions ; then with a smoking pilaff of 
rice ; several of which dishes I can pronounce to be of excellent 
material and flavour. When the gentry had concluded this repast, 
it was handed to a side table, where the commonalty speedily 
discussed it. AVe left tliem licking their fingers as we hastened 
away upon the second part of the ride. 

And as we quitted Ramleh, the scenery lost that sweet and 
peaceful look which characterises the pretty plain we had traversed ; 
and the sun, too, rising in the heaven, dissipated all those fresh 
beautiful tints in which God’s world is clothed of early morning, 
and which city people have so seldom the chance of beholding. 
The plain over which we rode looked yellow and gloomy ; the 
cultivation little or none ; the land across the roadside fringed, 
for the most part, with straggling wild-carrot plants ; a pat(^h of 
green only here and there. We passed several herds of lean, small, 
well-conditioned cattle : many flocks of black goats, tended now 
and then by a ragged negro shepherd, his long gun slung over his 
back, his hand over his eyes 'to shade them as he stared at our 
little cavalcade. Most of the half-naked countryfolks we met had 
this dismal appendage to Eastern rustic life ; and the weapon could 
hardly be one of mere defence, for, beyond the faded skullcap, or 
tattered coat of blue or dirty white, the brawny, brown-chested, 
solemn-looking fellows had nothing seemingly to guard. As before, 
there was no lack of travellers on the road : more donkeys trotted 
by, looking sleek and strong; camels singly and by pairs, laden 


ROADSIDE SKETCHES 


683 


with a little humble ragged merchandise, on their way between the 
two towns. About noon we halted eagerly at a short distance 
from an Arab village and well, where all were glad of a drink 
of fresh water. A village of beavers, or a colony of ants, make 
habitations not unlike these dismal huts piled together on the plain 
here. There were no single huts along the whole line of road ; 
poor and wretched as they are, the Fellahs huddle all together for 
protection from the other thieves their neighbours. The govern- 
ment (which we restored to them) has no power to protect them, 
and is only strong enough to rob them. The women, with their 
long blue gowns and ragged veils, came to and fro with pitchers 
on their heads. Rebecca had such an one when she brought drink 
to the lieutenant of Abraham. The boys came staring round, 
bawling after us with their fathers for the inevitable backsheesh. 
The village dogs barked round the flocks, as they were driven to 
water or pasture. 

We saw a gloomy, not very lofty-looking ridge of hills in front 
of us ; the highest of which the guide pointing out to us, told us 
that from it we should see Jerusalem. It looked very near, and 
we all set up a trot of enthusiasm to get into this hill country. 

But that burst of enthusiasm (it may have carried us nearly a 
quarter of a mile in three minutes) was soon destined to be checked 
by the disagreeable nature of the country we had to traverse. 
Before we got to the real mountain district, we were in a manner 
prepared for it, by the mounting and descent of several lonely out- 
lying hills, up and down which our rough stony track wound. Then 
we entered the hill district, and our path lay through the clattering 
bed of an ancient stream, whose brawling waters nave rolled away 
into the past, along with the fierce and turbulent race who once 
inhabited these savage hills. There may have been cultivation here 
two thousand years ago. The mountains, or huge stony mounds 
environing this rough path, have level ridges all the way up to their 
summits ; on these XJ^'i’aHel ledges there is still some verdure and 
soil : when water flowed here, and the country was thronged with 
that extraordinary population, which, according to the Sacred 
Histories, was crowded into the region, these mountain steps may 
have been gardens and vineyards, such as we see now thriving along 
the hills of the Rhine. Now the district is quite deserted, and you 
ride among what seem to be so many petrified waterfalls. We saw 
no animals moving among the stony brakes ; scarcely even a dozen 
little birds in the whole course of the ride. The sparrows are all 
at Jerusalem, among the housetops, where their ceaseless chirping 
and twittering forms the most cheerful sound of the place. 

The company of Poles, the company of Oxford men, and the 


684 JOURNEY FROM CORNHILL TO CAIRO 


little American army, travelled too (iiiick for our caravan, which 
was made to follow the slow progress of the ladies’ litter, and we 
had to make the journey through the mountains in a very small 
number. Not one of our party had a single weapon more dreadful 
than an umbrella ; and a couple of Arabs, wdckedly inclined, might 
have brought us all to the lialt, and rilled every carpet-bag and 
pocket belonging to us. Nor can I say that we journeyed without 
certain qualms of fear. When swarthy fellows, with girdles full of 
pistols and yataghans, passed us without unslinging their long guns 
— when scowling camel-riders, with awful long bending lances, 
decorated with tufts of rags, or savage plumes of scarlet feathers, 
went by without molestation — I think we were rather glad that 
they did not stop and parley : for, after all, a British lion with an 
umbrella is no match for an Arab with his infernal long gun. What, 
too, would have become of our women ? So we tried to think that 
it was entirely out of anxiety for them that we were inclined to 
push on. 

There is a shady resting-place and village in the midst of tlie 
mountain district where the travellers are accustomed to halt for 
an hour’s repose and refreshment ; and the other caravans were just 
quitting this spot, having enjoyed its cool shades and waters, when 
we came up. Should we stop ? Regard for the ladies (of course 
no other earthly consideration) made us say, “ No ! ” What admir- 
able self-denial and chivalrous devotion ! So our poor devils of 
mules and horses got no rest and no water, our panting litter-men 
no breathing-time, and we staggered desperately after the i)rocession 
ahead of us. It wound up the mountain in front of us : the Poles 
with their gmis and attendants, the American with his janissaries ; 
fifty or sixty all riding slowly like the procession in “ Bluebeard.” 

But alas, they headed us very soon ; when we got up the weary 
hill they were all out of sight. Perhaps thoughts of Fleet Street 
did cross the minds of some of us then, and a vague desire to see 
a few policemen. Tlie district now seemed peopled, and with an 
ugly race. Savage personages peered at us out of huts, and grim 
holes in the rocks. The mules began to loiter most abominably — 
water the muleteers must have — and, behold, we came to a pleasant- 
looking village of trees standing on a hill ; children were shaking 
figs from the trees — women were going about — before us was the 
mosque of a holy man — the village, looking like a collection of little 
forts, rose up on the hill to our right, with a long view of the fields 
and gardens stretching from it, and camels arriving with their 
burdens. Here we must stop ; Paolo, the chief servant, knew the 
Skeikh of the village — he very good man — give him water and 
supper — water very good here — in fact we began to think of the 


ABOU GOSH 685 

propriety of halting here for the night, and making our entry into 
Jerusalem on the next day. 

A man on a handsome horse dressed in red came x>rancing up 
to us, looking hard at the ladies in the litter, and passed away. 
Then two others sauntered up, one liandsome, and dressed in red 
too, and he stared into the litter without ceremony, began to play 
with a little dog that lay there, asked if we w*ere Inglees, and was 
answered by me in the affirmative. Paolo had brought the water, 
the most delicious draught in the world. The gentlefolks had had 
some, the poor muleteers were longing for it. The French maid, 
tlie courageous Victoire (never since the days of Joan of Arc has 
there surely been a more gallant and virtuous female of France) 
refused the drink ; when suddenly a servant of the party scampers 
up to his master and says : “ Abou Gosh says the ladies must get 
out and show themselves to the women of the village ! ” 

It was Abou Gosh himself, the redoubted robber Sheikh about 
whom we had been laughing and crying “ Wolf!” all day. Never 
was seen such a skurry 1 “ March ! ” was the instant order given. 

When Victoire heard who it was and the message, you should have 
seen how she changed countenance ; trembling for her virtue in the 
ferocious clutches of a Gosh. “ Un verre d’eau pour Famour de 
Dieu ! ” gasped she, and was ready to faint on her saddle. “Ne 
buvez plus, Victoire ! ” screamed a little fellow of our party. “ Push 
on, push on 1 ” cried one and all. “ What’s the matter 1” exclaimed 
the ladies in the litter, as they saw themselves suddenly jogging on 
again. But we took care not to tell them what had been the 
designs of the redoubtable Abou Gosh. Away then we w^ent — 
Victoire was saved — and her mistresses rescued from dangers they 
knew not of, until they were a long way out of the village. 

Did he intend insult or goodwill^ Did Victoire escape the 
odious chance of becoming Madame Abou Gosh ? Or did the 
mountain chief simply propose to be hospitable after his fashion? 
I think the latter w^as his desire ; if the former had been his wdsh, 
a half-dozen of his long guns could have been up with us in a 
minute, and had all our party at their mercy. But now, for the 
sake of the mere excitement, the incident was, I am sorry to say, 
rather a pleasant one than otherwise : especially for a traveller who 
is in the happy condition of being able to sing before robbers, as is 
the case wdth the writer of the present. 

A little way out of the land of Goshen we came upon a long 
stretch of gardens and vineyards, slanting towards the setting sun, 
which illuminated numberless golden clusters of the most delicious 
grapes, of which we stopped and partook. Such grapes were never 
before tasted ; water so fresh as that which a countryman fetched 


686 JOURNEY FROM CORNHILL TO CAIRO 


for us from a well never sluiced parched throats before. It was 
the ride, the sun, and above all Abou Gosh, who made that refresh- 
ment so sweet, and hereby I offer him my best thanks. Presently, 
in the midst of a most diabolical ravine, down which our horses 
went sliding, we heard the evening gun : it was fired from Jerusalem. 
The twilight is brief in this country, and in a few minutes the 
landscape was grey round about us, and the sky lighted up by a 
hundred thousand stars, which made the night beautiful. 

Under this superb canopy we rode for a couple of hours to our 
journey’s end. The mountains round about us dark, lonely, and 
sad ; the landscape as we saw it at night (it is not more cheerful 
in the daytime), the most solemn and forlorn I have ever seen. 
The feelings of almost terror with which, riding through the night, 
we approached this awful place, the centre of the world’s past and 
future history, have no need to be noted down here. The recollec- 
tion of those sensations must remain with a man as long as his 
memory lasts ; and he should think of them as often, perhaps, as 
he should talk of them little. 


CHAPTER XIII 


JERUSALEM 



HE ladies of our party found excellent quarters in readiness 


for them at the Greek convent in the city ; where airy rooms, 


^ and plentiful meals, and wines and sweetmeats delicate and 
abundant, were provided to cheer them after the fatigues of their 
journey. I don’t know whether the worthy fathers of the convent 
share in the good things which they lavish on their guests ; but 
they look as if they do. Those whom we saw bore every sign of 
easy conscience and good living ; there were a pair of strong, rosy, 
greasy, lazy lay-brothers, dawdling in the sun on the convent terrace, 
or peering over the parapet into the street below, whose looks gave 
one a notion of anything but asceticism. 

In the principal room of the strangers’ house (the lay traveller 
is not admitted to dwell in the sacred interior of the convent), and 
over the building, the Russian double-headed eagle is displayed. 
The place is under the patronage of the Emperor Nicholas; an 
Imperial Prince has stayed in these rooms; the Russian consul 
performs a great part in the city ; and a considerable annual 
stipend is given by the Emperor towards the maintenance of the 
great establishment in Jerusalem. The Great Chapel of the Church 
of the Holy Sepulchre is by far the richest, in point of furniture, of 
all the places of worship under that roof We were in Russia, 
wlien we came to visit our friends here ; under the protection of 
the Father of the Church and the Imperial Eagle ! This butcher 
and tyrant, who sits on his throne only through the crime of those 
who held it before him — every step in whose pedigree is stained by 
some horrible mark of murder, parricide, adultery — this paddetl 
and whiskered pontiff — who rules in his jack-boots over a system 
of spies and soldiers, of deceit, ignorance, dissoluteness, and brute 
force, such as surely the history of the world never told of before — 
has a tender interest in the welfare of his spiritual children ; in the 
Eastern Church ranks after Divinity, and is worshipped by millions 
of men. A pious exemplar of Christianity truly ! and of the condi- 
tion to which its union with politics has brought it ! Think of the 
rank to which he pretends, and gravely believes that he possesses, 


f)88 JOURNEY FROM CORNHILL TO CAIRO 


no doubt ! — think of those wlio assumed the same ultra-sacred 
character before him ! — and then of the Bible and the Founder 
of the Religion, of Avliich the Emperor assumes to be the cliief 
priest and defender ! 

We liad some Poles of our party ; but these poor fellows went 
to the Latin convent, declining to worship after the Emi)eror’s 
fashion. The next night after our arrival, two of them passed in 
the Sepulchre. Tliere we saw them, more than once on subsequent 
visits, kneeling in the Latin Church before the pictures, or march- 
ing solemnly with candles in processions, or lying flat on the stones, 
or passionately kissing the spots wliich their traditions have conse- 
crated as the authentic places of the Saviour’s sufferings. More 
honest or more civilised, or from opposition, the Latin fathers have 
long given up and disowned the disgusting mummery of the Eastern 
Fire — which lie the Greeks continue annually to tell. 

Their travellers’ house and convent, though large and com- 
modious, are of a much poorer and shabbier condition than those 
of the Greeks. Both make believe not to take money : but the 
traveller is expected to pay in each. The Latin fathers enlarge 
their means by a little harmless trade in beads and crosses, and 
mother-(^f-pearl shells, on which figures of saints are engraved ; and 
which they purchase from the manufacturers, and vend at a small 
profit. The Englisli, until of late, used to be quartered in these 
sham inns ; but last year two or three Maltese took houses for the 
reception of tourists, who can now be accommodated vdtli cleanly 
and comfortable board, at a rate not too heavy for most pockets. 

To one of these we went very gladly; giving our horses the 
bridle at the door, which went off* of their own will to their stables, 
through the dark inextricable labyrinths of streets, archways, and 
alleys, which we had threaded after leaving the main street from 
the Jaffa Gate. There, there was still some life. Numbers of 
persons were collected at their doors, or smoking before the dingy 
coffee-houses, where singing and story-telling w^ere going on ; but 
out of this great street everything was silent, and no sign of a light 
from the windows of the low houses which we passed. 

We ascended from a lower floor up to a terrace, on M^hich were 
several little domed chambers, or pavilions. From this terrace, 
whence we looked in the morning, a great part of the city spread 
before us : — white domes upon domes, and terraces of the same 
character as our own. Here and there, from among these white- 
washed mounds round about, a minaret rose, or a rare date-tree; 
but the chief part of the vegetation near was that odious tree the 
prickly pear, — one huge green wart growing out of another, armed 


JEAYISII PILGRIMS 


689 

with spikes, as iiiliospitable as the aloe, witlioiit shelter or beauty. 
To the right the Mos({ue of Omar rose ; the rising sun behind it. 
Yonder steep tortuous lane before us, flanked by ruined walls on 
either side, has borne, time out of mind, the title of Via Dolorosa ; 
and tradition has fixed the spots where the Saviour rested, bearing 
His cross to Calvary. But of the mountain, rising immediately in 
front of us, a few grey olive-trees speckling the yellow side here 
and there, there can be no question. That is the Mount of Olives. 
Bethany lies beyond it. The most sacred eyes that ever looked on 
this world have gazed on those ridges ; it was there He used to 
walk and teach. With shame and humility one looks towards the 
spot where that inexpressible Love and Benevolence lived and 
breathed ; where the great yearning heart of the Saviour interceded 
for all our race : and whence the bigots and traitors of his day led 
Him away to kill Him ! 

That company of Jews whom we had brought with us from 
Constantinople, and who had cursed every delay on the route, not 
from impatience to view the Holy City, but from rage at being 
obliged to purchase dear provisions for their maintenance on ship- 
board, made what bargains they best could at Jaffa, and journeyed 
to the Valley of Jehoshaphat at the cheapest rate. We saw the 
tall form of the old Polish Patriarch, venerable in filth, stalking 
among the stinking ruins of the Jewish quarter. The sly old Rabbi, 
ill the greasy folding hat, who would not pay to shelter his children 
from the storm off Beyrout, greeted us in the bazaars ; the younger 
Rabbis Avere furbished up with some smartness. We met them on 
Sunday at the kind of promenade by tlie walls of the Bethlehem 
Gate ; they were in company of some red-bearded co-religionists, 
smartly attired in Eastern raiment ; but their voice was the voice 
of the Jews of Berlin, and of course as Ave passed they were talking 
about so many hundert thaler. You may track one of the peojjle, 
and be sure to hear mention of that silver calf that they Avorship. 

The English mission has been very unsuccessful with these 
religionists. I don’t believe the Episcopal apparatus— the chaplains, 
and the colleges, and the beadles — have succeeded in converting a 
dozen of them ; and a sort of martyrdom is in store for the luckless 
HebreAvs at Jerusalem Avho shall secede from their faith. Their old 
community spurn them Avith horror ; and I heard of the case of one 
unfortunate man, Avhose Avife, in spite of her husband’s change of 
creed, being resolved, like a true woman, to cleave to him, Avas 
spirited aAA^ay from him in his absence ; was kept in privacy in the 
city, in spite of all exertions of the mission, of the consul and the 
bishop, and the chaplains and the beadles ; Avas passed aAvay from 


690 JOURNEY FROM CORNHILL TO CAIRO 

Jerusalem to Beyrout, and thence to Constantinople ; and from 
Constantinople was whisked off into the Russian territories, where 
she still pines after her husband. May that unhappy convert find 
consolation away from her ! I could not help thinking, as my 
informant, an excellent and accomplished gentleman of the mission, 
told me the story, that the Jews had done only what the Christians 
do under the same circumstances. The woman was the daughter 
of a most learned Rabbi, as I gathered. Suppose the daughter of 
the Rabbi of Exeter, or Canterbury, were to marry a man who 
turned Jew, would not her Right Reverend Father be justified in 
taking her out of the power of a person likely to hurl her soul to 
perdition'? These poor converts should surely be sent away to 
England out of the way of persecution. We could not but feel a 
pity for them, as they sat there on their benches in the church 
conspicuous ; and thought of the scorn and contumely which attended 
them without, as they passed, in their European dresses and shaven 
beards, among their grisly, scowling, long-robed countrymen. 

As elsewhere in the towns I have seen, the Ghetto of Jerusalem 
is pre-eminent in filth. The people are gathered round about the 
dung-gate of the city. Of a Friday you may hear their wailings 
and lamentations for the lost glories of their city. I think the 
Valley of Jehoshaphat is the most ghastly sight I have seen in the 
world. From all quarters they come hither to bury their dead. 
When his time is come yonder hoary old miser, with whom we 
made our voyage, will lay his carcase to rest here. To do that, 
and to claw together money, has been the purpose of that strange 
long life. 

We brought with us one of the gentlemen of the mission, 

a Hebrew convert, the Rev. Mr. E ; and lest I should be 

supposed to speak with disrespect above of any of the converts of 
the Hebrew faith, let me mention this gentleman as the only one 
whom I had the fortune to meet on terms of intimacy. I never 
saw a man whose outward conduct was more touching, whose 
sincerity was more evident, and whose religious feeling seemed more 
deep, real, and reasonable. 

Only a few feet off, the walls of the Anglican Church of Jeru- 
salem rise up from their foundations on a picturesque open spot, 
in front of the Bethlehem Gate. The English Bishop has his 
church hard by : and near it is the house where the Christians of 
our denomination assemble and worship. 

There seem to be polyglot services here. I saw books of 
prayer, or Scripture, in Hebrew, Greek, and German : in which 
latter language Dr. Alexander preaches every Sunday. A gentleman 
who sat near me at church used all these books indifferently ; reading 


ENGLISH SERVICE AT JERUSALEM 691 

the first lesson from the Hebrew book, and tlie second from the 
Greek. Here we all assembled on the Sunday after our arrival : it 
was affecting to hear the music and language of our country sounding 
in this distant place ; to have the decent and manly ceremonial of 
our service ; the prayers delivered in that noble language. Even 
that stout anti-prelatist, the American consul, who has left his 
house and fortune in America in order to witness the coming of the 
Millennium, who believes it to be so near that he has brought a 
dove with him from his native land (which bird he solemnly informed 
us was to survive the expected Advent), was affected by the good 
old words and service. He swayed about and moaned in his place 
at various passages ; during the sermon he gave especial marks of 
sympathy and approbation. I never heard the service more excel- 
lently and impressively read than by the Bishop’s chaplain, Mr. 
Veitch. But it was the music that was most touching I thought, — 
the sweet old songs of home. 

There was a considerable company assembled : near a hundred 
people I should think. Our party made a large addition to the 
usual congregation. The Bishop’s family is proverbially numerous : 
the consul, and the gentlemen of the mission, have wives, and 
children, and English establishments. These, and the strangers, 
occupied places down the room, to the right and left of the desk 
and communion-table. The converts, and the members of the 
college, in rather a scanty number, faced the officiating clergyman ; 
before whom the silver maces of the janissaries w^ere set up, as they 
set up the beadles’ maces in England. 

I made many walks round the city to Olivet and Bethany, to 
the tombs of the kings, and the fountains sacred in story. These 
are green and fresh, but all the rest of the landscape seemed to me 
to be frightful. Parched mountains, with a grey bleak olive-tree 
trembling here and there ; savage ravines and valleys, paved with 
tombstones — a landscape unspeakably ghastly and desolate, meet 
the eye wherever you wander round about the city. The place 
seems quite adapted to the events which are recorded in the Hebrew 
histories. It and they, as it seems to me, can never be regarded 
without terror. Fear and blood, crime and punishment, follow 
from page to page in frightful succession. There is not a spot at 
which you look, but some violent deed has been done there : some 
massacre has been committed, some victim has been murdered, 
some idol has been worshipped with bloody and dreadful rites. 
Not far from hence is the place where the Jewish conqueror fought 
for the possession of Jerusalem. “ The sun stood still, and hasted 
not to go down about a whole day ; ” so that the Jews might have 
daylight to destroy the Amorites, whose iniquities were full, and 


692 JOURNEY FROM CORNHILL TO CAIRO 

whose land they were about to occupy. The fugitive heathen king, 
and his allies, were discovered in their hiding-place, and hanged ; 
“and the children of Judah smote Jerusalem with the edge of the 
sword, and set the city on fire ; and they left none remaining, but 
utterly destroyed all that breathed.” 

I went out at the Zion Gate, and looked at the so-called tomb 
of David. I had been reading all the morning in the Psalms, and 
his history in Samuel and Kings. Bring thon down Shiniei's 
hoar head to the grave ivith blood , are the last words of the dying 
monarch as recorded by the history. What they call the tomb is 
now a crumbling old mosque ; from which Jew and Christian are 
excluded alike. As I saw it, blazing in the sunshine, with the 
purple sky behind it, the glare only served to mark the surrounding 
desolation more clearly. The lonely walls and towers of the city 
rose hard by. Dreary mountains, and declivities of naked stones, 
were round about : they are burrowed with holes in which 
Christian hermits lived and died. You see one green place far 
down in the valley : it is called En Rogel. Adonijah feasted there, 
who was killed by his brother Solomon, for asking for Abishag for 
wife. The Valley of Hinnom skirts the hill : the dismal ravine was 
a fruitful garden once. Ahaz, and the idolatrous kings, sacrificed 
to idols under the green trees there, and “ caused their children to 
pass through the fire.” On the mountain opposite, Solomon, with 
the thousand women of his harem, worshipped the gods of all their 
nations, “ Ashtoreth,” and “ Milcoin, and Molech, the abomination 
of the Ammonites.” An enormous charnel-house stands on the hill 
where the bodies of dead pilgrims used to be thrown ; and common 
belief has fixed upon this spot as the Aceldama, which Judas 
purchased with the price of his treason. Thus you go on from one 
gloomy place to another, each seared with its bloody tradition. 
Yonder is the Temple, and you think of Titus’s soldiery storming 
its flaming porches and entering the city, in the savage defence of 
which two million human souls perished. It was on Mount Zion 
that Godfrey and Tailored had their camp : when the Crusaders 
entered the mosque, they rode knee-deep in the blood of its 
defenders, and of the women and children who had fled thither for 
refuge : it was the victory of Joshua over again. Then, after three 
days of butchery, they purified the desecrated mosque and went to 
prayer. In the centre of this history of crime rises up the Great 
Murder of all 

I need say no more about this gloomy landscape. After a man 
has seen it once, he never forgets it — the recollection of it seems to 
me to follow him like a remorse, as it were to implicate him in the 
awful deed which was done there. Oh, with what unspeakable 


THE CHURCH OF THE SEPULCHRE 693 

shame and terror should one think of that crime, and prostrate 
himself before the image of that Divine Blessed Sufferer ! 

Of course the first visit of the traveller is to the famous Church 
of the Sepulchre. 

In the archway, leading from the street to the court and church, 
there is a little bazajir of Bethlehemites, who must interfere con- 
siderably with the commerce of the Latin fathers. These men bawl 
to you from their stalls, and hold up for your purchase their 
devotional baubles, — bushels of rosaries and scented beads, and 
carved mother-of-pearl shells, and rude stone salt-cellars and figures. 
Now that inns are established, — envoys of these pedlars attend 
them on the arrival of strangers, squat all day on the terraces before 
your door, and patiently entreat you to buy of their goods. Some 
worthies there are who drive a good trade by tattooing pilgrims with 
the five crosses, the arms of Jerusalem ; under which the name of 
the city is punctured in Hebrew, with the auspicious year of the 
Hadji’s visit. Several of our fellow-travellers submitted to this 
queer operation, and will carry to their grave this relic of their 
journey. Some of them had engaged as servant a man at Beyrout, 
who had served as a lad on board an English ship in the Medi- 
terranean. Above his tattooage of the five crosses, the fellow had a 
picture of two hearts united, and the pathetic motto, “ Betsy my 
dear.” He had parted with Betsy my dear five years before at 
Malta. He had known a little English there, but had forgotten it. 
Betsy my dear was forgotten too. Only her name remained en- 
graved with a vain simulacrum of constancy on the faithless rogue’s 
skin : on which was now printed another token of equally effectual 
devotion. The beads and the tattooing, however, seem essential 
ceremonies attendant on the Christian pilgrim’s visit; for many 
hundreds of years, doubtless, the palmers have carried off with them 
these simple reminiscences of the sacred city. That symbol has 
been engraven upon the arms of how many Princes, Knights, and 
Crusaders ! Don’t you see a moral as applicable to them as to the 
swindling Beyrout horseboy 1 I have brought you back that cheap 
and wholesome apologue, in lieu of any of the Bethlehemite shells 
and beads. 

After passing through the porch of the pedlars, you come to the 
courtyard in front of the noble old towers of the Church of the 
Sepulchre, with pointed arches and Gothic traceries, rude, but rich 
and picturesque in design. Here crowds are waiting in the sun, 
until it shall please the Turkish guardians of the church-door to 
open. A swarm of beggars sit here permanently : old tattered hags 
with long veils, ragged children, blind old bearded beggars, who 


694 JOURNEY FROM CORNHILL TO CAIRO 

raise up a chorus of prayers for money, holding out their wooden 
bowls, or clattering with their sticks on the stones, or pulling your 
coat-skirts and moaning and whining; yonder sit a group of coal- 
black Coptish pilgrims, with robes and turbans of dark blue, fumbling 
their perpetual beads. A party of Arab Christians have come up 
from their tents or villages : the men half-naked, looking as if they 
were beggars, or banditti, upon occasion ; the women have flung 
their head-cloths back, and are looking at the strangers under their 
tattooed eyebrows. As for the strangers, there is no need to describe 
them : that figure of the Englishman, with his liands in his pockets, 
lias been seen all the world over : staring down the crater of 
Vesuvius, or into a Hottentot kraal — or at a pyramid, or a Parisian 
coffee-house, or an Esquimaux hut — with the same insolent calmness 
of demeanour. When the gates of the church are open, he elbows 
in among the first, and flings a few scornful piastres to the Turkish 
door-keeper ; and gazes round easily at the place, in which people of 
every other nation in the world are in tears, or in rapture, or wonder. 
He has never seen the place until now, and looks as indifferent as 
the Turkish guardian who sits in the doorway, and swears at the 
people as they pour in. 

Indeed, I believe it is impossible for us to comprehend the source 
and nature of the Roman Catholic devotion. I once went into a 
church at Rome at the request of a Catholic friend, who described 
the interior to be so beautiful and glorious, that he thought (he 
said) it must be like heaven itself. I found walls hung with cheap 
stripes of pink and white calico, altars covered with artificial flowers, 
a number of wax candles, and plenty of gilt-paper ornaments. The 
place seemed to me like a shabby theatre ; and here was my friend 
on his knees at my side, plunged in a rapture of wonder and 
devotion. 

I could get no better impression out of this the most famous 
church in the world. The deceits are too open and flagrant; the 
inconsistencies and contrivances too monstrous. It is hard even to 
sympathise with persons who receive them as genuine ; and though 
(as I know and saw in the case of my friend at Rome) the believeris 
life may be passed in the purest exercise of flxith and charity, it is 
difficult even to give him credit for honesty, so barefaced seem the 
impostures which he professes to believe and reverence. It costs 
one no small effort even to admit the possibility of a Catholic’s 
credulity : to share in his rapture and devotion is still further out 
of your power ; and I could get from this church no other emotions 
but those of shame and pain. 

The legends with which the Greeks and Latins have garnished 
the spot have no more sacredness for you than the hideous, unreal. 


THE LEAST SACRED SPOT 


695 

barbaric pictures and ornaments which tliey have lavished on it. 
Look at the fervour with which pilgrims kiss and weep over a 
tawdry Gothic painting, scarcely better fashioned than an idol in 
a South Sea Morai. The histories which they are called upon to 
reverence are of the same period and order,— savage Gothic carica- 
tures. In either a saint appears in the costume of the middle ages, 
and is made to accommodate himself to the fashion of the tenth 
century. 

The different churches battle for the possession of the various 
relics. The Greeks show you the Tomb of Melchisedec, while the 
Armenians possess the Chapel of the Penitent Thief ; the poor 
Copts (with their little cabin of a chapel) can yet boast of possess- 
ing the thicket in which Abraham caught the Ram, which was to 
serve as the vicar of Isaac ; the Latins point out the Pillar to 
which the Lord was bound. The place of the Invention of the 
Sacred Cross, the Fissure in the Rock of Golgotha, the Tomb of 
Adam himself — are all here within a few yards’ space. You mount 
a few steps, and are told it is Calvary upon which you stand. All 
this in the midst of flaring candles, reeking incense, savage pictures 
of Scripture story, or portraits of kings who have been benefactors 
to the various chapels ; a din and clatter of strange people, — these 
weeping, bowing, kissing, — those utterly indifferent ; and the priests 
clad in outlandish robes, snuffling and chanting incomprehensible 
litanies, robing, disrobing, lighting up candles or extinguishing them, 
advancing, retreating, bowing with all sorts of unfamiliar genu- 
flexions. Had it pleased the inventors of the Sepulchre topography 
to have fixed on fifty more spots of ground as the places of the 
events of the sacred story, the pilgrim would liave believed just as 
now. The priest’s authority has so mastered his faith, that it 
accommodates itself to any demand upon it; and the English 

stranger looks on the scene, for the first time, with a feeling of 

scorn, bewilderment, and shame at that grovelling credulity, those 
strange rites and ceremonies, that almost confessed imposture. 

Jarred and distracted by these, the Church of the Holy 
Sepulchre, for some time, seems to an Englishman the least sacred 
spot about Jerusalem. It is the lies, and the legends, and the 
priests, and their quarrels, and their ceremonies, which keep the 
Holy Place out of sight. A man has not leisure to view it, for the 
brawling of the guardians of the spot. The Roman conquerors, 
they say, raised up a statue of Venus in this sacred place, intend- 
ing to destroy all memory of it. I don’t think the heathen was 

as criminal as the Christian is now. To deny and disbelieve, is 

not so bad as to make belief a ground to cheat upon. The liar 
Ananias perished for that ; and yet out of these gates, where angels 


()9() JOURNEY FROM CORNHILL TO CAIRO 

may have kept watch — out of the tomb of Christ — Christian priests 
issue with a lie in their hands. What a place to choose for impos- 
ture, good Cod ! to sully with brutal struggles for self-aggrandise- 
ment or shameful schemes of gain ! 

The situation of the Tomb (into which, be it authentic or not, no 
man can enter without a shock of breathless fear, and deep and 
awful self-humiliation) must have struck all travellers. It stands 
in the centre of the arched rotunda, which is common to all deno- 
minations, and from which branch off the various chapels belonging 
to each particular sect. In the Coptic chapel I saw one coal-black 
Copt, in blue robes, cowering in the little cabin, surrounded by 
dingy lamps, barbarous pictures, and cheap faded trumpery. In 
the Latin Church there was no service going on, only two fathers 
dusting the mouldy gewgaws along the brown walls, and laughing 
to one another. The gorgeous church of the Fire impostors, hard 
by, was always more fully attended ; as was that of their wealthy 
neighbours, the Armenians. These three main sects hate each 
other ; their quarrels are interminable ; each bribes and intrigues 
with the heathen lords of the soil, to the prejudice of his neighbour. 
Now it is the Latins who interfere, and allow the common church 
to go to ruin, because the Greeks purpose to roof it ; now the 
Greeks demolish a monastery on Mount Olivet, and leave the ground 
to the Turks, rather than allow the Armenians to possess it. On 
another occasion, the Greeks having mended tlie Armenian steps 
which lead to the (so-called) Cave of the Nativity at Bethlehem, 
the latter asked for permission to destroy the work of the Greeks, 
and did so. And so round this sacred spot, the centre of Christen- 
dom, the representatives of the three great sects worship under one 
roof, and liate each other ! 

Above the Tomb of the Saviour, the cupola is open, and you 
see the blue sky overhead. Which of the builders was it that had 
the grace to leave that under the high protection of Heaven, and 
not confine it under the mouldering old domes and roofs, which 
cover so much selfishness, and uncharitableness, and imposture ? 

We went to Bethlehem, too ; and saw the apocryphal wonders 
there. 

Five miles’ ride brings you from Jerusalem to it, over naked 
wavy hills ; the aspect of which, however, gi'ows more cheerful as 
you approach the famous village. We passed the Convent of Mar 
Elyas on the road, walled and barred like a fort. In spite of its 
strength, however, it has more than once been stormed by the 
Arabs, and the luckless fathers within put to death. Hard by was 
Rebecca’s Well : a dead body was lying there, and crowds of male 


CHURCH OF THE NATIVITY 69I 

and female mourners dancing and howling round it. Now and then 
a little troop of savage scowling horsemen — a shepherd driving his 
black sheep, his gun over his shoulder — a troop of camels— or of 
women, ^vith long blue robes and white veils, bearing pitchers, and 
staring at the strangers with their great solemn eyes — or a company 
of labourers, with their donkeys, bearing grain or grapes to the city, 
— met us and enlivened the little ride. It was a busy and cheerful 
scene. The Church of the Nativity, Avith the adjoining convents, 
forms a A^ast and noble Christian structure. A party of travellers 
were going to the Jordan that day, and scores of their folloAvers — of 
the robbing Arabs, Avho profess to protect them (magnificent figures 
some of them, AAuth flowing haicks and turbans, Avith long guns and 
scimitars, and wretched horses, covered with gaudy trappings), were 
standing on the broad pavement before the little convent gate. It 
Avas such a scene as Cattermole might paint. Knights and Crusaders 
may have witnessed a similar one. You could fancy them issuing 
out of the narroAV little portal, and so greeted by the swarms of 
swarthy clamorous women and merchants and children. 

The scene Avithin the building AA^as of the same Gothic character. 
We AA^re entertained by the Superior of the Greek Convent, in a 
fine refe(;tory, Avith ceremonies and hospitalities that pilgrims of the 
middle ages might have witnessed. We were shoAvn over the 
magnificent Barbaric Church, visited of course the Grotto Avhere 
the Blessed Nativity is said to have taken place, and the rest of 
the idols set up for AV’^orship by the clumsy legend. When the visit 
was concluded, the party going to the Dead Sea filed off Avith their 
armed attendants ; each individual traveller making as brave a shoAv 
as he could, and personally accoutred Avith Avarlike swords and 
pistols. The picturesque croAvds, and the Arabs and the horsemen, 
in the sunshine ; the noble old convent, and the grey-bearded priests, 
Avith their feast ; and the church, and its pictures and columns, and 
incense: the wide broAAm hills spreading round the village; Avith 
the accidents of the road, — flocks and shepherds, Avells and funerals, 
and camel-trains,— have left on my mind a brilliant, romantic, and 

cheerful picture. But you, dear M , Avithout visiting the place, 

have imagined one far flner ; and Bethlehem, Avhere the Holy Child 
Avas born, and the angels sang, “ Glory to God in the highest, and 
on earth peace and goodwill towards men,” is the most sacred and 
beatiful spot in the earth to you. 

By far the most comfortable quarters in Jerusalem are those of 
the Armenians, in their convent of St. James. Wherever Ave have 
been, these Eastern quakers look grave, and jolly, and sleek. Their 
coiiA'^ent at Mount Zion is big enough to contain tAvo or three 


698 JOUENEY FROM CORNHILL TO CAIRO 

thousantl of their faithful ; and their church is ornamented by the 
most ricli and hideous gifts ever devised by uncouth piety. Instead 
of a bell, the fat monks of the convent beat huge noises on a board, 
and drub the faithful in to prayers. I never saw men more lazy 
and rosy than these reverend fathers, kneeling in their comfortable 
matted church, or sitting in easy devotion. Pictures, images, gild- 
ing, tinsel, wax candles, twinkle all over the place; and ten thousand 
ostriches’ eggs (or any lesser number you may allot) dangle from the 
vaulted ceiling. There were great numbers of j)eople at worship in 
this gorgeous church ; they went on their knees, kissing the walls 
with much fervour, and paying reverence to the most precious relic 
of the convent, — the chair of St. James, their patron, the first 
Bishop of Jerusalem. 

The chair pointed out with greatest pride in the church of the 
Latin Convent, is that shabby red damask one appropriated to the 
French Consul, — the representative of the King of that nation, — 
and the protection which it has from time immemorial accorded to 
the Christians of the Latin rite in Syria. All French writers and 
travellers speak of this protection with delightful complacency. 
Consult the French books of travel on the subject, and any French- 
man whom you may meet : he says, “ La France, Monsieur, de tons 
les temps protege les Chretiens d’Orient ; ” and the little fellow 
looks round the church with a sweep of the arm, and protects it 
accordingly. It is do?i ton for them to go in processions ; and you 
see them on such errands, marching with long candles, as gravely 
at may be. But I have never been able to edify myself with their 
devotion ; and the religious outpourings of Lamartine and Chateau- 
briand, which we have all been reading a j^'opos of the journey we 
are to make, have inspired me with an emotion anything but 
respectful. “Voyez comme M. de Chateaubriand prie Dieu,” the 
Viscount’s eloquence seems always to say. There is a sanctified 
grimace about the little French pilgrim which it is very difficult to 
contemplate gravely. ' 

The pictures, images, and ornaments of the principal Latin 
convent are quite mean and poor, compared to the wealth of the 
Armenians. The convent is spacious, but squalid. Many hopping 
and crawling plagues are said to attack the skins of pilgrims who 
sleep there. It is laid out in courts and galleries, the mouldy doors 
of which are decorated with twopenny pictures of favourite saints 
and martyrs ; and so great is the shabbiness and laziness, that you 
might fancy yourself in a convent in Italy. Brown-clad fatliers, 
dirty, bearded, and sallow, go gliding about the corridors. The 
relic mapufactory before mentioned carries on a considerable business, 
and despatches bales of shells, crosses, and beads to believers in 


LATIN AND AMERICAN CONVENTS 699 

Europe. These constitute the chief revenue of the convent now. La 
France is no longer the most Christian kingdom, and her protection 
of the Latins is not good for much since Charles X. was expelled ; and 
Spain, which used likewise to be generous on occasions (the gifts, 
arms, candlesticks, baldaquins of the Spanish sovereigns figure pretty 
frequently in the various Latin chapels), has been stingy since the 
late disturbances, the spoliation of the clergy, &c. After we had been 
taken to see the humble curiosities of the place, the Prior treated us 
in his wooden parlour with little glasses of pink Rosolio, brought with 
many bows and genuflexions by his reverence the convent butler. 

After this community of holy men, the most important perhaps 
is the American Convent, a Protestant congregation of Independents 
chiefly, who deliver tracts, propose to make converts, have meetings 
of their own, and also swell the little congregation that attends the 
Anglican service. I have mentioned our fellow-traveller, the Consul- 
General for Syria of the United States. He was a tradesman, who 
had made a considerable fortune, and lived at a country-house in 
comfortable retirement. But his opinion is, that the proj)hecies of 
Scripture are about to be accomplished ; that the day of tlie return 
of the Jews is at hand, and the glorification of the restored Jeru- 
salem. He is to witness this — he and a favourite dove with wliich 
he travels ; and he forsook home and comfortable country-house, 
in order to make this journey. He has no other knowledge of 
Syria but what he derives from the prophecy; and this (as he 
takes the office gratis) has been considered a sufficient reason for 
his appointment by the United States Government. As soon as he 
arrived, he sent and demanded an interview with the Pasha; 
explained to him his interpretation of the Apocalypse, in which 
he has discovered that the Five Powers and America are about to 
intervene in Syrian affairs, and the infallible return of the Jews to 
Palestine. The news must have astonished the Lieutenant of the 
Sublime Porte; and since the days of the Kingdom of Munster, 
under his Anabaptist Majesty, John of Leyden, I doubt whether 
any Government has received or appointed so queer an ambassador. 
The kind, worthy, simple man took me to his temporary consulate- 
house at the American Missionary Establishment ; and, under pre- 
tence of treating me to white wine, expounded his ideas ; talked of 
futurity as he would about an article in The Times ; and had no 
more doubt of seeing a divine kingdom established in Jerusalem 
than you that there would be a lev^e next spring at St. James’s. 
The little room in which we sat was padded with missionary tracts, 
but I heard of scarce any converts — not more than are made by 
our own Episcopal establishment. 

But if the latter’s religious victories are small, and very few 


700 JOURNEY FROM CORNHILL TO CAIRO 

people are inducecl by the American tracts, and the English preach- 
ing and catecliising, to forsake their own manner of worshipping the 
Divine Being in order to follow onrs ; yet surely our religious colony 
of men and women can’t fail to do good, by the sheer force of good 
example, pure life, and kind offices. The ladies of the mission have 
numbers of clients, of all persuasions, in the town, to whom they 
extend their charities. Each of their houses is a model of neatness, 
and a dispensary of gentle kindnesses ; and the ecclesiastics have 
formed a modest centre of civilisation in the place. A dreary joke 
was made in the House of Commons about Bishop Alexander and 
the Bishopess his lady, and the Bishoplings his numerous chil- 


dren, who were said to 
have scandalised the people 
of Jerusalem. That sneer 
evidently came from the 
Latins and Greeks ; for 
what could the Jews and 
Turks care because an Eng- 
lish clergyman had a wife 
and children as their own 
priests havel There was 
no sort of ill-will exhibited 
towards them, as far as I 
could learn ; and I saw 
the Bishop’s children riding 
about tlie town as safely 
as they could about Hyde 
Park. All Europeans, in- 
deed, seemed to me to be 
received with forbearance, 
and almost courtesy, within 
the walls. As I was going 



about making sketches, the people would look on very good- 
humouredly, without offering the least interruption ; nay, two or 
three were quite ready to stand still for such an humble portrait 
as my pencil could make of tliem ; and the sketch done, it Avas 
passed from one person to another, each making his comments, 
and signifying a very polite approval. Here are a pair of them, 
Fath Allah and Ameenut Daoodee his father, horse-dealers by 
trade, who came and sat with us at the inn, and smoked pipes 
(the sun being down), while the original of the above masterpiece 
Avas made. With the Arabs outside the Avails, hoAvever, and the 
freshly arriving country }>eople, this politeness Avas not so much 
exhibited. There was a certain tattooed girl, Avith black eyes and 


ARAB ROBBERS 


701 


huge silver earrings, and a chin delicately picked out with blue, 
who formed one of a group of women outside the great convent, 
whose likeness I longed to carry off ; there was a woman with a 
little child, with wondering eyes, drawing water at the Pool of 
Siloam, in such an attitude and dress as Rebecca may have had 
when Isaac’s lieutenant asked her for drink ; — both of these parties 
standing still for half a minute, at the next cried out for backsheesh ; 
and not content with the five piastres which I gave them individu- 
ally, screamed out for more, and summoned their friends, who 
screamed out backsheesh too. I was pursued into the convent by 
a dozen howling women calling for i3ay, barring the door against 
them, to the astonishment of the worthy papa who kept it ; and at 
Miriam’s Well the women were joined by a man with a large stick, 
who backed their petition. But him we could afford to laugh at, 
for we were two and had sticks likewise. 

In the village of Siloam I would not recommend the artist to 
loiter. A colony of ruffians inhabit the dismal place, who liave 
guns as well as sticks at need. Their dogs howl after the strangers 
as they pass through ; and over the parapets of their walls you are 
saluted by the scowls of a villainous set of countenances, that it is 
not good to see with one pair of eyes. They shot a man at mid-day 
at a few hundred yards from the gates while we were at Jerusalem, 
and no notice was taken of the murder. Hordes of Arab robbers 
infest the neighbourhood of the city, with the Sheikhs of whom 
travellers make terms when minded to pursue their journey. I 
never could understand why the walls stopped these warriors if they 
had a mind to plunder the city, for there are but a hundred and 
fifty men in the garrison to man the long lonely lines of defence. 

I have seen only in Titian’s pictures those magnificent purple 
shadows in which the hills round about lay, as the dawn rose faintly 
behind them ; and we looked at Olivet for the last time from our 
terrace, where we were awaiting the arrival of the horses that were 
to carry us to Jaffa. A yellow moon was still blazing in the midst 
of countless brilliant stars overhead ; the nakedness and misery of 
the surrounding city were hidden in that beautiful rosy atmosphere 
of mingling night and dawn. The city never looked so noble ; the 
mosques, domes, and minarets rising up into the calm star-lit sky. 

By the gate of Bethlehem there stands one palm-tree, and a 
house with three domes. Put these and the huge old Gothic gate 
as a background dark against the yellowing eastern sky : the fore- 
ground is a deep grey : as you look into it dark forms of horsemen 
come out of the twilight : now there come lanterns, more horsemen, 
a litter with mules, a crowd of Arab horseboys and dealers accompany- 


702 JOURNEY FROM CORNHILL TO CAIRO 


ing their beasts to the gate ; all the members of our party come up 
by twos and threes ; and, at last, the great gate opens just before 
sunrise, and we get into the grey plains. 

Oh the luxury of an English saddle ! An English servant of 
one of the gentlemen of the mission procured it for me, on the back 
of a little mare, which (as I am a light weight) did not turn a hair 
in the course of the day’s march — and after we got quit of the ugly, 
stony, clattering, mountainous Abou Gosh district, into the fair 
undulating plain, which stretches to Ramleh, carried me into the 
town at a pleasant hand-gallop. A negro, of preternatural ugliness, 
in a yellow gown, with a crimson handkerchief streaming over his 
head, digging his shovel spurs into the lean animal he rode, and 
driving three others before — swaying backwards and forwards on 
his horse, now embracing his ears, and now almost under his belly, 
screaming “ yallah ” with the most frightful shrieks, and singing 
country songs — galloped along ahead of me. I acquired one of his 
poems pretty well, and could imitate his shriek accurately ; but I 
shall not have the pleasure of singing it to you in England. I had 
forgotten the delightful dissonance two days after, both the negro’s and 
that of a real Arab minstrel, a donkey-driver accompanying our bag- 
gage, who sang and grinned with the most amusing good-humour. 

We halted, in the middle of the day, in a little wood of olive- 
trees, which forms almost the only shelter between Jaffa and 
Jerusalem, except that afforded by the orchards in the odious 
village of Abou Gosh, through which we went at a double quick 
pace. Under the olives, or up in the branches, some of our friends 
took a siesta. I have a sketch of four of them so employed. Two 
of them were dead within a month of the fatal Syrian fever. But 
we did not know how near fate was to us then. Fires were lighted, 
and fowls and eggs divided, and tea and coffee served round in tin 
panikins, and here we lighted pipes, and smoked and laughed at our 
ease. I believe everybody was happy to be out of Jerusalem. The 
impression I have of it now is of ten days passed in a fever. 

We all found quarters in the Greek convent at Ramleh, where 
the monks served us a supper on a terrace, in a pleasant sunset ; a 
beautiful and cheerful landscape stretching around ; the land in 
graceful undulations, the towers and mosques rosy in the sunset, 
with no lack of verdure, especially of graceful palms. Jaffa was 
nine miles off. As we rode all the morning we had been accompanied 
by the smoke of our steamer, twenty miles off at sea. 

The convent is a huge caravanserai ; only three or four monks 
dwell in it, the ghostly hotel-keepers of the place. The horses 
were tied up and fed in the courtyard, into whicli we rode ; above 
were the living-rooms, where there is accommodation, not only for an 


RETURN TO JAFFA 


703 


unlimited number of pilgrims, but for a vast and innumerable host 
of hopping and crawling things, who usually persist in partaking of 
the traveller’s bed. Let all thin-skinned travellers in the East be 
warned on no account to travel without the admirable invention de- 
scribed in Mr. Fellowes’s book; nay, possibly invented by that 
enterprising and learned traveller. You make a sack, of calico or 
linen, big enough for the body, appended to which is a closed 
chimney of muslin, stretched out by cane hoops, and fastened up to 
a beam, or against the wall. You keep a sharp eye to see that no 
flea or bug is on the look-out, and when assured of this, you pop 
into the bag, tightly closing the orifice after you. This admirable 
bug-disappointer I tried at Ramleh, and had the only undisturbed 
night’s rest I enjoyed in the East. To be sure it was a short night, 
for our party were stirring at one o’clock, and those who got up 
insisted on talking and keeping awake those who inclined to sleep. 
But I shall nev6r forget the terror inspired in my mind, being shut up 
in the bug-disappointer, when a facetious lay-brother of the convent 
fell upon me and began tickling me. I never had the courage again to 
try the anti-flea contrivance, preferring the friskiness of those animals 
to the sports of such a greasy grinning wag as my friend at Ramleh. 

In the morning, and long before sunrise, our little caravan was 
in marching order again. We went out with lanterns and shouts 
of “ yallah ” through the narrow streets, and issued into the plain, 
where, though there was no moon, there were blazing stars shining 
steadily overhead. They become friends to a man who travels, 
especially under the clear Eastern sky ; whence they look down as 
if protecting you, solemn, yellow, and refulgent. They seem nearer 
to you than in Europe ; larger and more awful. So we rode on till 
the dawn rose, and Jaffa came in view. The friendly ship was lying 
out in waiting for us ; the horses were given up to their owners ; 
and in the midst of a crowd of naked beggars, and a perfect storm 
of curses and yells for backsheesh, our party got into their boats, 
and to the ship, where we were welcomed by the very best captain 
that ever sailed upon this maritime globe, namely. Captain Samuel 
Lewis, of the Peninsular and Oriental Company’s Service. 


CHAPTER XIV 


FROM JAFFA TO ALEXANDRIA 
[From the Providor’s Log-Book.] 
Bill of Fare, October \2th. 


Mulligatawny Soup. 

Salt Fish and Egg Sauce. 

Roast Haunch of Mutton. 

Boiled Shoulder and Onion Sauce. 
Boiled Beef. 

Roast Fowls. 

Pillau ditto. 

Ham. 

Haricot Mutton. 

Curry and Rice. 


Cabbage. 
French Beans. 
Boiled Potatoes. 
Baked ditto. 


Damson Tart. 
Currant ditto. 
Rice Puddings, 


Currant Fritters. 


W E were just at the port’s mouth — and could see the towers 
and buildings of Alexandria rising purple against the 
sunset, when the report of a gun came booming over the 
calm golden water ; and we heard, with much mortification, tliat 
we had no chance of getting pratitpie that night. Already the 
ungrateful passengers liad begun to tire of the ship, — though in our 
absence in Syria it had been carefully cleansed and purified ; though 
it was cleared of the swarming Jews wlio liad infested the decks all 
the way from Constantinople ; and though we had been feasting and 
carousing in the manner described above. 

But very early next morning we bore into the harbour, busy 
with a great quantity of craft. We passed huge black liulks of 
mouldei-ing men-of-war, from the sterns of which trailed the dirty 
red flag, with the star and crescent ; boats, manned with red-ca])ped 
seamen, and captains and steersmen in beards and tarbooshes, passed 
continually among these old hulks, the rowers bending to their 
oars, so that at each stroke they disappeared bodily in the boat. 
Besides these, there was a large fieet of country ships, and stars 
and stripes, and tricolours, and Union Jacks ; and many active 
steamers, of tlie French and English companies, shooting in and 
out of the harbour, or moored in the briny waters. The ship of 


ALEXANDRIA 


705 


our company, the Oriental^ lay there — a’ palace upon the brine, 
and some of the Pasha’s steam-vessels likewise, looking very like 
Christian boats ; but it was queer to look at some unintelligible 
Turkish flourish painted on the stern, and the long-tailed Arabian 
hieroglyphics gilt on the paddle-boxes. Our dear friend and com^ 
rade of Beyrout (if we may be permitted to call her so), H.M.S. 
Trump, was in the harbour ; and the captain of that gallant ship, 
coming to greet us, drove some of us on shore in his gig. 

I had been preparing myself overnight, by the help of a cigar 
and a moonlight contemplation on deck, for sensations on landing 
in Egypt. I was ready to yield myself up with solemnity to the 
mystic grandeur of the scene of initiation. Pompey’s Pillar must 
stand like a mountain, in a yellow plain, surrounded by a grove of 
obelisks as taU as palm-trees. Placid sphinxes brooding o’er the 
Nile — mighty Memnonian countenances calm — had revealed Egypt 
to me in a sonnet of Tennyson’s, and I was ready to gaze on it 
with pyramidal wonder and hieroglyphic awe. 

The landing quay at Alexandria is like the dockyard quay at 
Portsmouth : with a few score of brown faces scattered among the 
population. There are slop-sellers, dealers in marine-stores, bottled- 
porter shops, seamen lolling about; flys and cabs are plying for 
hire ; and a yelling chorus of donkey-boys, shrieking, “ Ride, sir !— 
Donkey, sir ! — I say, sir ! ” in excellent English, dispel all romantic 
notions. The placid sphinxes brooding o’er the Nile disappeared 
with that shriek of the donkey-boys. You might be as well 
impressed with Wapping as with your first step on Egyjjtian soil. 

The riding of a donkey is, after all, not a dignified occupation. 
A man resists the offer at first, somehow, as an indignity. How 
is that poor little, red-saddled, long-eared creature to carry you*? 
Is there to be one for you, and another for your legs? Natives 
and Europeans, of all sizes, pass by, it is true, mounted upon the 
same contrivance. I waited until I got into a very private spot, 
where nobody could see me, and then ascended — why not say 
descended, at once ? — on the poor little animal. Instead of being 
crushed at once, as perhaps the rider expected, it darted forward, 
quite briskly and cheerfully, at six or seven miles an hour ; requiring 
no spur or admonitive to haste, except the shrieking of the little 
Egyptian gamin, who ran along by asinus’s side. 

The character of the houses by which you pass is scarcely 
Eastern at all. The streets are busy with a motley population 
of Jews and Armenians, slave-driving-looking Europeans, large- 
breeched Greeks, and well-shaven buxom merchants, looking as 
trim and fat as those on the Bourse or on ’Change; only, among 
the natives, the stranger can’t fail to remark (as the Caliph did 
5 2 y 


106 JOURNEY FROM CORNHILL TO CAIRO 

of the Calenders in the “ Arabian Night ”) that so many of them 
have only 'one eye. It is the horrid ophthalmia which has played 
such frightful ravages with them. You see children sitting in the 
doorways, their eyes completely closed up with the green sickening 
sore, and the flies feeding on them. Five or six minutes of the 
donkey-ride brings you to the Frank quarter, and the handsome 
broad street (like a street of Marseilles) where the principal hotels 
and merchants’ houses are to be found, and where the consuls 
have their houses, and hoist their flags. The palace of the French 
Consul-General makes the grandest show in the street, and presents 
a great contrast to the humble abode of the English representative, 
who protects his fellow-countrymen from a second floor. 

But that Alexandrian two-pair-front of a Consulate was more 
welcome and cheering than a palace to most of us. For there lay 
certain letters, with post-marks of Home upon them; and kindly 
tidings, the first heard for two months : — though we had seen so 
many men and cities since, that Comhill seemed to be a year off, 
at least, with certain persons dwelling (more or less) in that vicinity. 
I saw a young Oxford man seize his desj)atches, and slink off with 
several letters, written in a tight neat hand, and sedulously crossed ; 
which any man could see, without looking farther, were the handi- 
work of Mary Ann, to whom he is attached. The lawyer received 
a bundle from his chambers, in which his clerk eased his soul 
regarding the state of Snooks v, Rodgers, Smith aU Tomkins, &c. 
The statesman had a packet of thick envelopes, decorated with that 
profusion of sealing-wax in which official recklessness lavishes the 
resources of the country : and your humble servant got just one little 
modest letter, containing another, written in pencil character, vary- 
ing in size between one and two inches ; but how much pleasanter 
to read than my Lord’s despatch, or the clerk’s account of Smith 
aU Tomkins, — yes, even than the Mary Ann correspondence ! . . . 
Yes, my dear madam, you will understand me when I say that it 
was from little Polly at home, with some confidential news about 
a cat, and the last report of her new doll. 

It is worth while to have made the journey for this pleasure ; 
to have walked the deck on long nights, and have thought of home. 
You have no leisure to do so in the city. You don’t see the 
heavens shine above you so purely there, or the stars so clearly. 
How, after the perusal of the above documents, we enjoyed a file 
of the admirable Galignani ; and what O’Connell was doing ; and 
the twelve last new victories of the French in Algeria ; and, above 
all, six or seven numbers of Punch ! There might have been an 
avenue of Pompey’s Pillars within reach, and a live sphinx sporting 
on the banks of tlie Mahmoodieh Canal, and we would not have 


MEHEMET ALI 707 

stirred to see them, until Punch had had his interview and 
Galignani was dismissed. 

The curiosities of Alexandria are few, and easily seen. We 
went into the bazaars, which have a much more Eastern look than 
the European quarter, with its Anglo-Gallic-Italian inhabitants, 
and Babel-like civilisation. Here and there a large hotel, clumsy 
and whitewashed, with Oriental trellised windows, and a couple of 
slouching sentinels at the doors, in the ugliest composite uniform 
that ever was seen, was pointed out as the residence of some great 
officer of the Pasha’s Court, or of one of the numerous children of the 
Egyptian Solomon. His Highness was in his own palace, and was 
consequently not visible. He was in deep grief, and strict retire- 
ment. It was at this time that the European newspapers announced 
that he was about to resign his empire : but the quidnuncs of 
Alexandria hinted that a love-affair, in which the old potentate 
had engaged with senile extravagance, and the effects of a potion 
of Imchisch, or some deleterious drug, with which he was in the 
habit of intoxicating himself, had brought on that languor and 
desperate weariness of life and governing, into which the venerable 
Prince was plunged. Before three days were over, however, the fit 
had left him, and he determined to live and reign a little longer. 
A very few days afterwards several of our party were presented 
to him at Cairo, and found the great Egyptian ruler perfectly 
convalescent. 

This, and the Opera, and the quarrels of the two prime dmine, 
and the beauty of one of them, formed the chief subjects of con- 
versation ; and I had this important news in the shop of a certain 
barber in the town, who conveyed it in a language composed of 
French, Spanish, and Italian, and with a volubility quite worthy of 
a barber of “ Gil Bias.” 

Then we went to see the famous obelisk presented by Mehemet 
Ali to the British Government, who have not shown a particular 
alacrity to accept this ponderous present. The huge shaft lies on 
the ground, prostrate, and desecrated by all sorts of abominations. 
Children were s^jrawling about, attracted by the dirt there. Arabs, 
negroes, and donkey-boys were passing, quite indifferent, by the 
fallen monster of a stone — as indifferent as the British Government, 
who don’t care for recording the glorious termination of their 
Egyptian campaign of 1801. If our country takes the compliment 
so coolly, surely it would be disloyal upon our parts to be more 
enthusiastic. I wish they would offer the Trafalgar Square Pillar 
to the Egyptians; and that both of the huge ugly monsters were 
lying in the dirt there side by side. 

Pompey’s Pillar is by no means so big as the Charing Cross 


708 JOURNEY FROM CORNHILL TO CAIRO 


trophy. This venerable column has not escaped ill-treatment either. 
Numberless ships’ companies, travelling cockneys, &c., have affixed 
their rude marks upon it. Some daring ruffian even painted the 
name of “Warren’s blacking” upon it, effacing other inscriptions, 
— one, Wilkinson says, of “the second Psammetichus.” I regret 
deeply, my dear friend, tlrat I cannot give you this document re- 
specting a lamented monarch, in whose history I know you take 
such an interest. 

The best sight I saw in Alexandria was a negro holiday ; which 
was celebrated outside of the town by a sort of negro village of huts, 
swarming with old, lean, fat, ugly, infantine, happy faces, that Nature 
had smeared with a preparation even more black and durable than 
that with which Psammetichus’s base has been polished. Every one 
of these jolly faces was on the broad grin, from the dusky mother 
to the india-rubber child sprawling upon her back, and the venerable 
jetty senior whose wool was as white as that of a slieep in Florian’s 
pastorals. 

To these dancers a couple of fellows were playing on a drum 
and a little banjo. They were singing a chorus, whicli was not only 

singular, and perfectly marked in 
the rhythm, but exceeding sweet 
in the tune. They danced in a 
circle ; and performers came troop- 
ing from all quarters, who fell into 
the round, and began waggling 
their heads, and waving their left 
hands, and tossing up and down 
the little thin rods which they each 
carried, and all singing to the very 
best of their power. • 

I saw the chief eunuch of the 
Grand Turk at Constantinople pass 
by — (here is an accurate like- 
ness of liis beautiful features) — but 
with what a different expression ! 
Though he is one of the greatest 
of the great in the Turkish Empire (ranking with a Cabinet Minister 
or Lord Chamberlain here), his fine countenance was clouded with 
care, and savage with ennui. 

Here his black brethren were ragged, starving, and happy ; and 
I need not tell such a fine moralist as you are, how it is the case, 
in the white as well as the black world, that happiness (republican 
leveller, who does not care a fig for the fashion) often disdains the 
turrets of kings, to pay a visit to the “tabenias pauperum.” 



THE COFFEE-HOUSES 


709 


We went the round of the coffee-houses in the evening, both the 
polite European places of resort, where you get ices and the French 
papers, and those in the town, where Greeks, Turks, and general 
company resort, to sit upon uncomfortable chairs, and drink wretched 
muddy coffee, and to listen to two or three miserable musicians, who 
keep up a variation of howling for hours together. But the pretty 
song of the niggers had spoiled me for that abominable music. 


CHAPTER XV 

TO CAIRO 


W E had no need of hiring tlie country boats which ply on 
the Mahmoodieh Canal to Atfeh, where it joins the Nile, 
but were accommodated in one of the Peninsular and 
Oriental Company’s fly-boats ; pretty similar to those narrow Irish 
canal boats in which the enterprising traveller has been carried from 
Dublin to Ballinasloe. The present boat was, to be sure, tugged by 
a little steamer, so that the Egyptian canal is ahead of the Irish in 
so far : in natural scenery, the one prospect is fully equal to the 
other ; it must be confessed that there is nothing to see. In truth, 
there was nothing but this : you saw a muddy bank on each side of 
you, and a blue sky overhead. A few round mud-huts and palm- 
trees were planted along the line here and there. Sometimes we 
would see, on the water-side, a woman in a blue robe, with her son 
by her, in that tight brown costume with which Nature had sup- 
plied him. Now, it was a hat dropped by one of the party into 
the water ; a brown Arab j)lunged and disappeared incontinently 
after the hat, re-issued from the muddy water, prize in hand, and 
ran naked after the little steamer (which was by this time far ahead 
of him), his brawny limbs shining in the sun :..then we had half-cold 
fowls and bitter ale! then we had dinner — bitter ale and cold fowls; 
with which incidents the day on the canal passed away, as harm- 
lessly as if we had been in a Dutch trackscliuyt. 

Towards evening we arrived at the town of Atfeh — half land, 
half houses, half palm-trees, with swarms of half-naked people 
crowding the rustic shady bazaars, and bartering their produce of 
fruit or many-coloured grain. Here the canal came to a check, 
ending abruptly with a large lock. A little fleet of masts ami 
country ships w^ere beyond the lock, and it led into The Nile. 

After all, it is something to have seen these red waters. It is 
only low green banks, mud-huts, and palm-clumps, with the sun 
setting red behind them, and the great, dull, sinuous river flashing 
here and there in the light. But it is the Nile, the old Saturn of 
a stream — a divinity yet, though younger river-gods have deposed 
him. Hail ! 0 venerable father of crocodiles 1 We were all lost in 


THE PYRAMIDS 


711 


sentiments of the profoundest awe and respect ; which we proved 
by tumbling down into the cabin of the Nile steamer that was 
waiting to receive us, and fighting and cheating for sleeping-berths. 

At dawn in the morning we were on deck ; the character had 
not altered of the scenery about the river. Vast flat stretches of 
land -were on either side, recovering from the subsiding inundations : 
near the mud villages, a country ship or two was roosting under 
the date-trees ; the landscape everywhere stretching away level and 
lonely. In the sky in the east was a long streak of greenish light, 
which widened and rose until it grew to be of an opal colour, then 
orange ; then, behold, the round red disc of the sun rose flaming up 
above the horizon. All the w'ater blushed as he got up ; the deck 
was all red ; the steersman gave his helm to another, and prostrated 
himself on the deck, and bowed his head eastward, and praised the 
Maker of the sun : it shone on his white turban as he was kneeling, 
and gilt up his bronzed face, and sent his blue shadow over the 
glowing deck. The distances, which had been grey, were now 
clothed in purple ; and the broad stream was illuminated. As the 
sun rose higher, the morning blush faded away ; the sky was cloud- 
less and ijale, and the river and the surrounding landscape were 
dazzlingly clear. 

Looking ahead in an hour or two, we saw the Pyramids. Fancy 
my sensations, dear M : two big ones and a little one — 


f 


f 


f 


There they lay, rosy and solemn in the distance — those old, 
majestical, mystical, familiar edifices. Several of us tried to be im- 
pressed ; but breakfast supervening, a rush was made at the coffee 
and cold pies, and the sentiment of awe was lost in the scramble 
for victuals. 

Are we so blasts of the world that the greatest marvels in it do 
not succeed in moving usi Have society, Pall Mall clubs, and a 
habit of sneering, so withered up our organs of veneration that we 
can admire no more ? My sensation with regard to the Pyramids 
was, that I had seen them before : then came a feeling of shame 
that the view of them should awaken no respect. Then I wanted 
(naturally) to see whether my neighbours were any more enthusiastic 
than myself — Trinity College, Oxford, was busy with the cold ham : 
Downing Street was particularly attentive to a bunch of grapes : 
-Figtree Court behaved with decent propriety ; he is in good practice, 
and of a Conservative turn of mind, which leads him to respect from 
principle les fails accomplis : perhaps he remembered that one of 


712 JOUENEY FROM CORNHILL TO CAIRO 

them was as big as Lincoln’s Inn Fields. But, the truth is, nobody 
was seriously moved. . . . And why should they, beeause of an 
exaggeration of bricks ever so enormous 1 I confess, for my part, 
that the Pyramids are very big. 

After a voyage of about thirty hours, the steamer brought up 
at the qimy of Boulak, amidst a small fleet of dirty comfortless 
cangias, in wliich cottons and merchandise were loading and unload- 
ing, and a huge noise and bustle on the shore. Numerous villas, 
parks, and country-houses had begun to decorate the Cairo bank of 
the stream ere this : residences of the Pasha’s nobles, who have had 
orders to take their pleasure here and beautify the precincts of the 
capital ; tall factory chimneys also rise here ; there are foundries 
and steam-engine manufactories. These, and the pleasure-houses, 
stand as trim as soldiers on parade ; contrasting with the swarming, 
slovenly, close, tumble-down. Eastern old town, that forms the out- 
port of Cairo, and was built before the importation of European 
taste and discipline. 

Here we alighted upon donkeys, to the full as brisk as those of 
Alexandria, invaluable to timid riders, and equal to any weight. 
We had a Jerusalem pony race into Cairo; my animal beating all 
the rest by many lengths. The entrance to the capital, from 
Boulak, is very pleasant and picturesque— over a fair road, and 
the wide-planted plain of the Ezbekieh ; where are gardens, canals, 
fields, and avenues of trees, and where the great ones of tlie town 
come and take their pleasure. We saw many barouches driving 
about with fat Pashas lolling on the cushions ; stately-looking 
colonels and doctors taking their ride, followed by their orderlies 
or footmen ; lines of people taking pipes and sherbet in the coffee- 
houses ; and one of the pleasantest sights of all, — a fine new wliite 
building A\’ith Hotel d’Oeient written up in huge French characters, 
and which, indeed, is an establishment as large and comfortable as 
most of the best inns of the South of France. As a hundred 
Christian people, or more, come from England and from India every 
fortnight, this inn has been built to accommodate a large proportion 
of tliem ; and twice a month, at least, its sixty rooms are full. 

The gardens from the windows give a very pleasant and ani- 
mated view : the hotel gate is besieged by crews of donkey-drivers ; 
the noble stately Arab women, witli tawny skins (of which a simple 
robe of floating blue cotton enables you liberally to see the colour) 
and large black eyes, come to the well hard by for water : camels 
are perpetually arriving and setting down their loads : the court is 
full of bustling dragomans, ayahs, and children from India; and 
poor old venerable he-nurses, with grey beards and crimson turbans, 


THE HOTEL D’ORIENT 


713 


tending little white-faced babies that have seen tlie light at Dumdum 
or Futtyghur a copper-coloured barber, seated on his hams, is 
shaving a camel-driver at the great inn-gate. The bells are ringing 
prodigiously ; and Lieutenant Waghorn is bouncing in and out of 
the courtyard full of business. He only left Bombay yesterday 
morning, was seen in the Red Sea on Tuesday, is engaged to dinner 
this afternoon in the Regent’s Park, and (as it is about two minutes 
since I saw him in the courtyard) I make no doubt he is by this 
time at Alexandria, or at Malta, say, perhaps, at both. 11 en est 
capable. If any man can be at two places at once (which I don’t 
believe or deny) Waghorn is he. 

Six o’clock bell rings. Sixty people sit down to a quasi-French 
banquet : thirty Indian officers in moustaches and jackets ; ten 
civilians in ditto and spectacles ; ten pale-faced ladies with ringlets, 
to whom all pay prodigious attention. All the pale ladies drink 
pale ale, which, perhaps, accounts for it ; in fact the Bombay and 
Suez passengers have just arrived, and hence this crowding and 
bustling, and display of military jackets and moustaches, and 
ringlets and beauty. The windows are open, and a rush of 
mosquitoes from the Ezbekieh waters, attracted by the wax candles, 
adds greatly to the excitement of the scene. There was a little 
tough old Major, who persisted in flinging open the windows, to 
admit these volatile creatures, with a noble disregard to their sting 
— and the pale ringlets did not seem to heed them either, though 
the delicate shoulders of some of them were bare. 

All the meat, ragoilts, fricandeaux, and roasts, which are served 
round at dinner, seem to me to be of the same meat ; a black 
uncertain sort of viand do these “fleshpots of Egypt” contain. 
But what the meat is no one knew : is it the donkey ? The animal 
is more plentiful than any other in Cairo. 

After dinner, the ladies retiring, some of us take a mixture of 
hot water, sugar, and pale French brandy, which is said to be 
deleterious, but is by no means unpalatable. One of the Indians 
offers a bundle of Bengal cheroots ; and we make acquaintance 
witli those honest bearded white-jacketed Majors and military 
Commanders, finding England here in a French hotel kept by an 
Italian, at the city of Grand Cairo, in Africa. 

On retiring to bed you take a towel with you into tlie sacred 
interior, beliind the mosquito curtains. Then your duty is, having 
tucked the curtains closely around, to flap and bang violently with 
this towel, right and left, and backwards and forwards, until every 
mosquito should have been massacred that may have taken refuge 
within your muslin canopy. 

Do what you will, however, one of them always escapes the 


714 JOURNEY FROM CORNHILL TO CAIRO 

murder ; and as soon as the caudle is out the miscreant begins his 
infernal droning and trumpeting ; descends playfully upon your nose 
and face, and so lightly that you don’t know that he touches you. 
But that for a week afterwards you bear about marks of his ferocity, 
you might take the invisible little being to be a creature of fancy — 
a mere singing in your ears. 

This, as an account of Cairo, dear M , you will probably 

be disposed to consider as incomplete : the fact is, I have seen 
nothing else as yet. I have peered into no harems. The magicians, 
proved to be humbugs, have been bastinadoed out of town. The 
dancing-girls, those lovely Alme, of whom I had hoped to be able 
to give a glowing and elegant, though strictly moral, description, 
have been whipped into Upper Egypt, and as you are saying in 

your mind Well, it isn’t a good description of Cairo : you 

are perfectly right. It is England in Egypt. I like to see her 
there with her pluck, enterprise, manliness, bitter ale, and Harvey 
Sauce. Wherever they come they stay and prosper. From the 
summit of yonder Pyramids forty centuries may look down on them 
if they are minded ; and I say, those venerable daughters of time 
ought to be better pleased by the examination, than by regarding 
the French bayonets and General Bonaparte, Member of the 
Institute, fifty years ago, running about with sabre and pigtail. 
Wonders he did, to be sure, and then ran away, leaving Kleber, to 
be murdered, in the lurch — a few hundred yards from the spot 
where these disquisitions are written. But what are his wonders 
compared to Waghornl Nap massacred the Mamelukes at the 
Pyramids : Wag has conquered the Pyramids tliemselves ; dragged 
the unwieldy structures a month nearer England than they were, 
and brought the country along with them. All the trophies and 
captives that ever were brought to Roman triumph were not so 
enormous and wonderf^ as this. All the heads that Napoleon 
ever caused to be struck off (as George Cruikshank says) would not 
elevate him a monument as big. Be ours the trophies of peace ! 
0 my country ! 0 Waghorn ! Hoe tihi erunt artes. When I go 

to the Pyramids I will sacrifice in your name, and pour out libations 
of bitter ale and Harvey Sauce in your honour. 

One of the noblest views in the world is to be seen from the 
citadel, which we ascended to-day. You see the city stretching 
beneath it, with a thousand minarets and mosques, — the great 
river curling through the green plains, studded with innumerable 
villages. The Pyramids are beyond, brilliantly distinct ; and the 
lines and fortifications of the height, and the arsenal lying below. 
Gazing down, the guide does not fail to point out the famous 
Mameluke leap, by which one of the corps escaped death, at the 


THE MOSQUE OF HASSAN 715 

time that His Highness the Pasha arranged the general massacre 
of the body. 

The venerable Patriarch’s harem is close by, where he received, 
^vith much distinction, some of the members of our party. We 
were allowed to pass very close to the sacred precincts, and saw a 
comfortable white European building, approached by flights of steps, 
and flanked by pretty gardens. Police and law-courts were here 
also, as I understood; but it was not the time of the Egyptian 
assizes. It would have been pleasant, otherwise, to see the Chief 
Cadi in his hall of justice ; and painful, though instructive, to 
behold the immediate application of the bastinado. 

The great lion of the place is a new mosque which Mehemet 
Ali is constructing very leisurely. It is built of alabaster of a 
fair white, with a delicate blushing tinge ; but the ornaments are 
European — the noble, fantastic, beautiful Oriental art is forgotten. 
The old mosques of the city, of which I entered two, and looked at 
many, are a thousand times more beautiful. Their variety of orna- 
ment is astonishing, — the difference in the shapes of the domes, the 
beautiful fancies and caprices in the forms of the minarets, which 
violate the rules of proportion with the most happy daring grace, 
must have struck every architect who has seen them. As you go 
through the streets, these architectural beauties keep the eye 
continually charmed : now it is a marble fountain, with its arabesque 
and carved overhanging roof, which you can look at with as much 
pleasure as an antique gem, so neat and brilliant is the execution of 
it ; then, you come to the arched entrance to a mosque, which shoots 
up like — like what ? — like the most beautiful pirouette by Taglioni, 
let us say. This architecture is not sublimely beautiful, perfect 
loveliness and calm, like that which was revealed to us at the 
Parthenon (and in comparison of which the Pantheon and Colosseum 
are vulgar and coarse, mere broad-shouldered Titans before ambrosial 
Jove) ; but tliese fantastic spires, and cupolas, and galleries, excite, 
amuse, tickle the imagination, so to speak, and perpetually fascinate 
the eye. There were very few believers in the famous mosque of 
Sultan Hassan when we visited it, except the Moslemitish beadle, 
who was on the look-out for backsheesh, just like his brother officer 
in an English cathedral ; and who, making us put on straw slippers, 
so as not to pollute the sacred pavement of the place, conducted us 
through it. 

It is stupendously light and airy ; the best specimens of Norman 
art that I have seen (and surely the Crusaders must have carried 
home the models of these heathenish temples in their eyes) do not 
exceed its noble grace and simplicity. The mystics make discoveries 
at home, that the Gothic architecture is Catholicism carved in stone 


7l6 JOURNEY FROM CORNHILL TO CAIRO 


— (in which case, and if architectural beauty is a criterion or expres- 
sion of religion, what a dismal barbarous creed must that expressed 
by the Bethesda meeting-house and Independent chapels be ? — if, as 
they would gravely hint, because Gothic architecture is beautiful, 
Catholicism is therefore lovely and right,— why, Mahometanism 
must have been right and lovely too once. Never did a creed 
possess temples more elegant ; as elegant as the Cathedral at Rouen, 
or the Baptistery at Pisa. 

But it is changed now. There was nobody at prayers ; only the 
official beadles, and the supernumerary guides, who came for baek- 
sheesh. Faith hatli degenerated. Accordingly they can’t build 
these mosques, or invent these perfect forms, any more. Witness 
the tawdry incompleteness and vulgarity of the Pasha’s new 
temple, and the woeful failures among the very late edifices in 
Constantinople ! 

However, they still make pilgrimages to Mecca in great force. 
The Mosque of Hassan is hard by the green plain on which the 
Harj encamps before it sets forth annually on its pious peregrination. 
It was not yet its time, but I saw in the bazaars that redoubted 
Dervish, who is the master of the Hag — the leader of every pro- 
cession, accompanying the sacred camel ; and a personage almost as 
much respected as Mr. O’Connell in Ireland. 

This fellow lives by alms (I mean the head of the Hag). 
Winter and summer he wears no clothes but a thin and scanty 
white shirt. He wields a staff, and stalks along scowling and 
barefoot. His immense shock of black hair streams behind him, 
and his brown brawny body is curled over with black hair, like a 
savage man. This saint has the largest harem in the town ; he is 
said to be enormously rich by the contributions he has levied ; and 
is so adored for his holiness by the infatuated folk, that when he 
returns from the Hag (which he does on horseback, the chief 
Mollahs going out to meet him and escort him home in state along 
the Ezbekieh road), the people fling themselves down under the 
horse’s feet, eager to be trampled upon and killed, and confident of 
heaven if the great Hadji’s horse will but kick them into it. AVas 
it my fault if I thought of Hadji Daniel, and the believers in him 1 

There was no Dervish of repute on the plain when I passed ; 
only one poor wild fellow, who was dancing, with glaring eyes and 
grizzled beard, rather to the contempt of the bysfiinders, as I 
thought, who by no means put coppers into his extended bowl. On 
this poor devil’s head there was a poorer devil still — a live cock, 
entirely plucked, but ornamented with some bits of ragged tape 
and scarlet and tinsel, the most horribly grotesque and miserable 
object I ever saw. 


A STREET SCENE 


717 


A little way from him, there \Vi\s a sort of play going on — a 
clown and a knowing one, like Widdicombe and the clown with us, 
— the buftbon answering with blundering responses, which made all 
the audience shout wdth laughter; but the only joke which was 
translated to me would make you do anything but laugh, and shall 
therefore never be revealed by tliese lips. All their humour, my 
dragoman tells me, is of this questionable sort; and a young 
Egyptian gentleman, son of a Pasha, whom I subsequently met at 
Malta, confirmed the statement, and gave a detail of the practices 
of private life which was anything but edifying. The great aim of 
woman, he said, in the much-maligned Orient, is to administer to 
the brutality of her lord ; her merit is in knowing how to vary the 
beast’s pleasures. He could give us no idea, he said, of the xoit 
of the Egyptian women, and their skill in double entendre ; nor, I 
presume, did we lose much by our ignorance. What I would urge, 
humbly, however, is this — Do not let us be led away by German 
writers and aesthetics, Semilassoisms, Hahnhahnisms, and the like. 
The life of the East is a life of brutes. The much-maligned Orient, 
I am confident, has not been maligned near enough ; for the good 
reason that none of us can tell the amount of horrible sensuality 
practised there. 

Beyond the Jack-pudding rascal and his audience, there was on 
the green a spot, on which was pointed out to me a mark, as of 
blood. That morning the blood had spouted from the neck of an 
Arnaoot soldier, wdio had been executed for murder. These Ai-naoots 
are the curse and terror of the citizens. Their c^mps are without 
the city ; but they are always brawling, or drunken, or murdering 
within, ill spite of the rigid law which is applied to them, and which 
brings one or more of the scoundrels to death almost every w^eek. 

Some of our party had seen this fellow borne by the hotel the 
day before, in the midst of a crowd of soldiers who had apprehended 
him. The man was still formidable to his score of captors : his 
clothes liad been torn off’; his limbs were bound with cords ; but he 
was struggling frantically to get free ; and my informant described 
the figure and appearance of the naked, bound, writhing savage, as 
quite a model of beauty. 

Walking in the street, this fellow had just before been stnick by 
the looks of a woman who was passing, and laid hands on her. She 
ran aw^ay, and he pursued her. She ran into the police-barrack, 
which was luckily hard by ; but the Arnaoot was nothing daunted, 
and followed into the midst of the police. One of them tried to 
stop him. The Aniaoot pulled out a pistol, and shot the policeman 
dead. He cut down three or four more before he was secured. He 
knew his inevitable end must be death : that he could not seize 


718 JOURNEY FROM CORNHILL TO CAIRO 


upon the woman : that he could not hope to resist half a regiment 
of armed soldiers : yet his instinct of lust and murder was too 
strong ; and so he had his head taken off quite calmly this morning, 
many of his comrades attending their brother’s last moments. He 
cared not the least about dying ; and knelt down and had his head 
off as coolly as if he were looking on at the same cpremony per- 
formed on another. 

When the head was off, and the blood was spouting on the 
ground, a married woman, who had no children, came forward very 
eagerly out of the crowd, to smear herself with it, — the application 
of criminals’ blood being considered a very favourable medicine for 
women afflicted with barrenness, — so she indulged in this remedy. 

But one of the Arnaoots standing near said, “ What, you like 
blood, do you?” (or words to that effect). “Let’s see how yours 
mixes with my comrade’s.” And thereupon, taking out a pistol, he 
shot the woman in the midst of the crowd and the guards who were 
attending the execution ; was seized of course by the latter ; and no 
doubt to-morrow morning will have his head off too. It would be 
a good chapter to VTite — the Death of the Arnaoot — but I shan’t 
go. Seeing one man hanged is quite enough in the course of a life. 
J’y ai ete, as the Frenchman said of hunting. 

These Arnaoots are the terror of the town. They seized hold of 
an Englishman the other day, and were very nearly pistolling him. 
Last week one of them murdered a shopkeeper at Boulak, who 
refused to sell him a water-melon at a price which he, the soldier, 
fixed upon it. So, for the matter of three-halfpence, he killed the 
shopkeeper ; and had his own rascally head chopped off, universally 
regretted by his friends. Why, I wonder, does not His Highness 
the Pasha invite the Arnaoots to a dejeuner at the Citadel, as hew 
did the Mamelukes, and serve them up the same sort of breakfast 1 
The walls are considerably heightened since Emin Bey and his horse 
leapt them, and it is probable that not one off them would escape. 

This sort of pistol practice is common enough here, it would 
appear ; and not among the Arnaoots merely, but the higher orders. 
Thus, a short time since, one of diis Highness’s grandsons, whom I 
shall call Bluel^eard Pasha (lest a revelation of the name of the 
said Pasha might iiiten'upt our good relations with his country) 
— one of the young Pashas being rather backward in his education, 
and anxious to learn mathematics, and the elegant deportment of 
civilised life, sent to England for a tutor. I have heard he was a 
Cambridge man, and had learned both algebra and politeness under 
the Reverend Doctor Whizzle, of College. 

One day when Mr. MacWhirter, B.A., was walking in Shoubra 
Gardens, with his Highness the young Bluebeard Pasha, inducting 


A GRACIOUS PRINCE 


719 

him into the usages of polished society, and favouring him with 
reminiscences of Trumpington, there came up a poor fellah, who 
flung liimself at the feet of young Bluebeard, and calling for justice 
in a loud and pathetic voice, and holding out a petition, besought 
his Highness to cast a gracious eye upon the same, and see that his 
slave had justice done him. 

Bluebeard Pasha was so deeply engaged and interested by his 
respected tutor’s conversation, that he told the poor fellah to go to 
the deuce, and resumed the discourse which his ill-timed outcry for 
justice had interrupted. But the unlucky wight of a fellah was 
pushed by his evil destiny, and thought he would make yet another 
application. So he took a short cut down one of the garden lanes, 
and as the Prince and the Reverend Mr. MacWhirter, his tutor, came 
along once more engaged in pleasant disquisition, behold the fellah 
w’as once more in their way, kneeling at the august Bluebeard’s feet, 
yelling out for justice as before, and thrusting his petition into the 
Royal face. 

When the Prince’s conversation was thus interrupted a second 
time, his Royal patience and clemency were at an end. “ Man,” 
said he, “ once before • I bade thee not to pester me with thy 
clamour, and lo ! you have disobeyed me, — take the consequences 
of disobedience to a Prince, and thy blood be upon thine own 
head.” So saying, he drew out a pistol and blew out the brains 
of that fellah, so that he never bawled out for justice any more. 

The Reverend Mr. MacWhirter was astonished at this sudden 
mode of proceeding : “ Gracious Prince,” said he, “ we do not shoot 
an undergraduate at Cambridge even for walking over a college 
grass-plot. — Let me suggest to your Royal Highness that this, 
method of ridding yourself of a poor devil’s importunities is such 
as we should consider abrupt and almost cruel in Europe. Let 
me beg you to moderate your Royal impetuosity for the future ; 
and, as your Highness’s tutor, entreat you to be a little less 
prodigal of your pow^der and shot.” 

“ 0 Mollah ! ” said his Highness, here interrupting his governor’s 
affectionate appeal, — “ you are good to talk about Trumpington and 
the Pons Asinorum, but if you interfere with the course of justice 
in any way, or prevent me from shooting any dog of an Arab who 
snarls at my heels, I have another pistol; and, by the beard of 
the Prophet ! a bullet for you too.” So saying he pulled out the 
weapon, with such a terrific and significant glante at the Reverend 
Mr. MacWhirter, that that gentleman wished himself back in his 
Combination Room again ; and is by this time, let us hope, safely 
housed there. 

Another facetious anecdote, the last of those I had from a well- 


720 JOURNEY FROM CORNHILL TO CAIRO 


informed gentleman residing at Cairo, whose name (as many copies 
of this hook that is to be will be in the circulating libraries there) 
I cannot, for obvious reasons, mention. Tlie revenues of the 
country come into the august treasury through the means of 
farmers, to whom the districts are let out, and who are personally 
answerable for their quota of the taxation. This practice involves 
an intolerable deal of tyranny and extortion on the part of those 
engaged to levy the taxes, and creates a corresponding duplicity 
among the fellahs, wlio are not only wretchedly poor among them- 
selves, but whose object is to appear still more poor, and guard their 
money from their rapacious overseers. Thus the Orient is much 
maligned ; but everybody cheats there : that is a melancholy fact. 
The Pasha robs and cheats the mercliants ; knows that the over- 
seer robs him, and bides his time, until he makes him disgorge by 
the application of the tremendous bastinado ; the overseer robs and 
squeezes the labourer; and the poverty-stricken devil cheats and 
robs in return; and so the government moves in a happy cycle 
of roguery. 

Deputations from the fellahs and peasants come perpetually 
before the august presence, to complain of tlie cruelty and exactions 
of the chiefs set over them : but, as it is known that the Arab 
never will pay without the bastinado, their complaints, for the 
most part, meet with but little attention. His Highness’s treasury 
must be filled, and his officers supported in their authority. 

However, there was one village, of which the complaints were 
so pathetic, and the inhabitants so supremely wretched, that the 
Royal indignation was moved at their story, and the chief of the 
village. Skinflint Beg, was called to give an account of himself at 
Cairo. 

W]ien he came before the presence, Meliemet Ali reproached 
him witli his horrible cruelty and exactions ; asked him how he 
dared to treat his faithful and beloved subjects in this way, and 
threatened him with disgrace, and the utter confiscation of his 
property, for thus having reduced a district to ruin. 

“ Your Highness says I have reduced these fellahs to ruin,” 
said Skinflint Beg : “ what is the best way to confound my enemies, 
and to show you the falsehood of their accusations that I have 
ruined them "I — To bring more money from them. If I bring you 
five hundred purses from my village, will you acknowledge that my 
people are not ruined yet 1 ” 

The heart of the Pasha was touclied : “ I will have no more 
bastinadoing, 0 Skinflint Beg ; you have tortured these poor people 
so much, and have got so little from them, that my Royal lieart 
relents for the present, and I will have them suffer no farther.” 


SKINFLINT BEG 


721 


“ Give me free leave — give me your Highness’s gracious pardon, 
and I will bring the five hundred purses as surely as my name is 
Skinflint Beg. I demand only the time to go home, the time to 
return, and a few days to stay, and I will come back as honestly 
as Begulus Pasha did to the Carthaginians, — I will come back and 
make my face white before your Highness.” 

Skinflint Beg’s prayer for a reprieve was granted, and he 
returned to his village, where he forthwith called the elders 
together. “ 0 friends,” he said, “ complaints of our poverty and 
misery have reached the Royal tlirone, and the benevolent heart 
of the Sovereign has been melted by the words that have been 
poured into his ears. ‘ My heart yearns towards my people of El 
Muddee,’ he says ; ‘ I have thought how to relieve their miseries. 
Near them lies the fruitful land of El Guanee. It is rich in maize 
and cotton, in sesame and barley ; it is wortli a thousand purses ; 
but I will let it to my children for seven hundred, and I will give 
over the rest of the profit to them, as an alleviation for their 
affliction.’ ” 

The elders of El Muddee knew the great value and fertility 
of the lands of Guanee, but they doubted the sincerity of their 
governor, who, however, dispelled their fears, and adroitly quickened 
their eagerness to close wuth the proffered bargain. “ I will myself 
advance two hundred and fifty purses,” he said ; “ do you take 
counsel among yourselves, and subscribe the other five hundred ; 
and when the sum is ready, a deputation of you shall carry it to 
Cairo, and I will come with my share ; and we will lay the wdiole 
at the feet of his Highness.” So the grey-bearded ones of the 
village advised with one another ; and those wdio had been inacces- 
sible to bastinadoes, somehow found money at the calling of interest ; 
and the Sheikh, and they, and the five hundred purses, set off on 
the road to the capital. 

When they arrived. Skinflint Beg and the elders of El Muddee 
sought admission to the Royal throne, and there laid dowui their 
purses. “ Here is your humble servant’s contribution,” said Skin- 
flint, producing his share ; “ and here is the offering of your loyal 
village of El Muddee. Did I not before say that enemies and 
deceivers had maligned me before the august presence, pretending 
that not a piastre was left in my village, and that my extortion had 
entirely denuded the peasantry '? See ! here is proof that there is 
plenty of money still in El Muddee : in twelve hours tlie elders 
have subscribed five hundred purses, and lay them at the feet of 
their lord.” 

Instead of the bastinado. Skinflint Beg w^as instantly rewarded 
with the Royal favour, and the former mark of attention was 
5 2 z 


722 JOURNEY FROM CORNHILL TO CAIRO 


bestowed upon the fellahs who had maligned him ; Skinflint Beg 
was promoted to the rank of Skinflint Bey; and his manner of 
extracting money from his people may be studied with admiration 
in a part of the United Kingdom.* 

At the time of the Syrian quarrel, and when, apprehending 
some general rupture with England, the Pasha wished to raise the 
spirit of the fellahs, and relever la morale nationale, he actually 
made one of the astonished Arabs a colonel. He degraded him 
three days after peace was concluded. The young Egyptian colonel, 
who told me this, laughed and enjoyed the joke with the utmost 
gusto. “ Is it not a shame,” he said, “ to make me a colonel at 
three-and-twenty ; I, who have no particular merit, and have never 
seen any service h ” Death has since stopped the modest and good- 

natured young fellow’s further promotion. The death of Bey 

was announced in the French papers a few weeks back. 

My above kind-hearted and agreeable young informant used to 
discourse, in our evenings in the Lazaretto at Malta, very eloquently 
about the beauty of his wife, whom he had left behind him at Cairo 
— her brown hair, her brilliant complexion, and her blue eyes. It 
is this Circassian blood, I suppose, to which the Turkish aristocracy 
that governs Egypt must be indebted for the fairness of their skin. 
Ibrahim Pasha, riding by in his barouche, looked like a bluff jolly- 
faced English dragoon officer, with a grey moustache and red cheeks, 
such as you might see on a field-day at Maidstone. All the 
numerous officials riding through the town were quite as fair as 
Europeans. We made acquaintance with one dignitary, a very 
jovial and fat Pasha, the proprietor of the inn, I believe, who Vas 
continually lounging about the Ezbekieh garden, and who, but for 
a slight Jewish cast of countenance, might have passed any day for 
a Frenchman. The ladies whom we saw were equally fair; that 
is, the very slight particles of the persons of ladies which our lucky 
eyes were permitted to gaze on. These lovely creatures go through 
the town by parties of three or four, mounted on donkeys, and 
attended by slaves holding on at the crupper, to receive the lovely 
riders lest they should fall, and shouting out shrill cries of 
“ Schmaalek,” “ Ameenek ” (or however else these words may be 
pronounced), and flogging off the people right and left with the 
buffalo-thong. But the dear creatures are even more closely dis- 
guised than at Constantinople : their bodies are enveloped with a 
large black silk hood, like a cab-head ; the fashion seemed to be to 
spread their arms out, and give this covering all the amplitude of 


At Derrynane Beg, for instance. 


SUBJECTS F.OR PAINTERS 723 

which it was capable, as they leered and ogled you from under their 
black masks with their big rolling eyes. 

Everybody has big rolling eyes here (unless, to be sure, they 
lose one of ophthalmia). The Arab women are some of the noblest 
figures I have ever seen. The habit of carrying jars on the head 
always gives the figure grace and motion ; and the dress the women 
wear certainly displays it to full advantage. I have brought a 
complete one home with me, at the service of any lady for a masqued 
ball. It consists of a coarse blue dress of calico, open in front, and 
fastened wdth a horn button. Three yards of blue stuff for a veil ; 
on the top of the veil a jar to be balanced on the head ; and a little 
black strip of silk to fall over the nose, and leave the beautiful eyes 
full liberty to roll and roam. But such a costume, not aided by 
any stays or any other article of dress whatever, can be worn only 
by a very good figure. I suspect it won’t be l3orrowed for many 
balls next season. 

The men, a tall, handsome, noble race, are treated like dogs. 
I shall never forget riding through the cro'wded bazaars, my in- 
terpreter, or laquais-de-place, ahead of me to clear the way — when 
he took his whip, and struck it over the shoulders of a man who 
could not or would not make way ! 

The man turned round — an old, venerable, handsome face, with 
awfully sad eyes, and a beard long and quite grey. He did not 
make the least complaint, but slunk out of the way, piteously 
shaking his shoulder. The sight of that indignity gave me a 
sickening feeling of disgust. I shouted out to the cursed lackey to 
hold his hand, and forbade him ever in my presence to strike old or 
young more ; but everybody is doing it. The whip is in everybody’s 
hands: the Pasha’s running footman, as ‘he goes bustling through 
the bazaar ; the doctor’s attendant, as he soberly threads the crowd 
on his mare ; the negro slave, who is riding by him&elf, the most 
insolent of all, strikes and slashes about without mercy, and you 
never hear a single complaint. 

How to describe the beauty of the streets to you ! — the fantastic 
splendour; the variety of the houses, and archways, and hanging 
roofs, and balconies, and porches ; the delightful accidents of light 
and shade which chequer them : the noise, the bustle, the brilliancy 
of the crowd ; the interminable vast bazaars with their barbaric 
splendour. There is a fortune to be made for painters in Cairo, 
and materials for a whole Academy of them. I never saw such a 
variety of architecture, of life, of picturesqueness, of brilliant colour, 
and light and shade. There is a picture in every street, and at 
every bazaar stall. Some of these our celebrated water-colour 
painter, Mr. Lewis, has produced with admirable truth and exceed- 


724 JOURNEY FROM CORNHILL TO CAIRO 


ing minuteness and beauty; but there is room for a hundred to 
follow him ; and should any artist (by some rare occurrence) read 
this, who has leisure, and wants to break new ground, let him take 
heart and try a winter in Cairo, where there is the finest climate 
and the best subjects for his pencil. 

A series of studies of negroes alone would form a picture-book, 
delightfully grotesque. Mounting my donkey to-day, I took a ride 
to the desolate noble old buildings outside the city, known as the 
Tombs of the Caliphs. Every one of these edifices, with their domes, 
and courts, and minarets, is strange and beautiful. In one of them 
there was an encampment of negro slaves newly arrived : some 
scores of them were huddled against the sunny wall ; two or three 
of their masters lounged about the court, or lay smoking upon 
carpets. There was one of these fellows, a straight-nosed ebony- 
faced Abyssinian, with an expression of such sinister good-humour 
in his handsome face as would form a perfect type of villainy. He 
sat leering at me, over his carpet, as I endeavoured to get a sketch 
of that incarnate rascality. “ Give me some money,” said the fellow. 
“ I know what you are about. You will sell my picture for money 
when you get back to Europe ; let me have some of it now ! ” But 
the very rude and humble designer was quite unable to depict such a 
consummation and perfection of roguery ; so flung him a cigar, which 
he began to smoke, grinning at the giver. I requested the interpreter 
to inform him, by way of assurance of my disinterestedness, that 
his face was a great deal too ugly to be popular in Europe, and that 
was the particular reason why I had selected it. 

Then one of his companions got up and showed us his black 
cattle. The male slaves were chiefly lads, and the women young, 
well formed, and abominably hideous. The dealer pulled her blanket 
off one of them, and bade her stand up, which she did with a great 
deal of shuddering modesty. She was coal black, her lips were the 
size of sausages, her eyes large and good-humoured ; the hair or wool 
on this young person’s head was curled and greased into a thousand 
filthy little ringlets. She was evidently the beauty of the flock. 

They are not unhappy : they look to being bought, as many a 
spinster looks to an establishment in England ; once in a family they 
are kindly treated and well clothed, and fatten, and are the merriest 
people of the whole community. These were of a much more savage 
sort than the slaves I had seen in the horrible market at Constan- 
tinople, where I recollect the following young creature — (indeed it 
is a very fair likeness of her) whilst I was looking at her and 
forming pathetic conjectures regarding her fate — smiling very good- 
humouredly, and bidding the interpreter ask me to buy her for 
twenty pounds. 


IN THE DESERT 


725 


From these Tombs of the Caliphs the Desert is before you. It 
comes up to the walls of the city, and stops at some gardens which 
spring up all of a sudden at its edge. You can see the first Station- 
house on the Suez Road ; and so from distance-point to point, could 
ride thither alone wdthout a guide. 

Asinus trotted gallantly into this desert for the space of a quarter 
of an hour. There we were (taking care to keep our back to the 
city walls), in the real actual desert : mounds upon mounds of sand, 
stretching away as far as the eye can see, until the dreary prospect 
fades away in the yellow horizon ! I had formed a finer idea of it 
out of “ Eothen.’’ Perhaps in a simoom it may look more awful. 
The only adventure that befell 
in this romantic place was that 
Asinus’s legs went deep into 
a hole : whereupon his rider 
went over his head, and bit 
the sand, and measured his 
length there; and upon this 
hint rose up, and rode home 
again. No doubt one should 
have gone out for a couple of 
days’ march — as it was, the 
desert did not seem to me sub- 
lime, only xincomfortahle. 

Very soon after this peri- 
lous adventure the sun likewise 
dipped into the sand (but not 
to rise therefrom so quickly 
as I had done) ; and I saw 
this daily phenomenon of sunset 
with pleasure, for I w'as engaged at that hour to dine with our old 
friend J , wdio has established himself here in the most com- 

plete Oriental fashion. 

You remember J , and what a dandy he was, the faultless- 

ness of his boots and cravats, the brilliancy of his waistcoats and 
kid gloves ; we have seen his splendour in Regent Street, in the 
Tuileries, or on the Toledo. My first object on arriving here was 
to find out his house, which he has taken far away from the haunts 
of European civilisation, in the Arab quarter. It is situated in a 
cool, shady, narrow alley ; so narrow, that it was with great diffi- 
culty — His Highness Ibrahim Pasha happening to pass at the same 
moment — that my little procession of two donkeys, mounted by self 
and valet-de-place, with the two donkey-boys our attendants, could 
range ourselves along the wall, and leave room for the august caval- 



726 JOURNEY FROM CORNHILL TO CAIRO 


cade. His Highness having rushed on (with an affable and good- 
humoured salute to our imposing party), we made J.’s quarters ; 
and, in the first place, entered a broad covered court or porch, where 
a swarthy tawny attendant, dressed in blue, with white turban, 
keeps a perpetual watch. Servants in the East lie about all the 
doors, it appears ; and you clap your hands, as they do in the dear 
old “ Arabian Nights,” to summon them. 

This servant disappeared through a narrow wicket, which he 
closed after him ; and went into the inner chambers, to ask if his 
lord would receive us. He came back presently, and rising up from 
my donkey, I confided liim to his attendant (lads more sharp, arch, 
and wicked than these donkey-boys don’t walk the pav^ of Paris or 
London), and passed the mysterious outer door. 

■■ First w^e came into a broad open court, with a covered gallery 
running along one side of it. A camel was reclining on the grass 

there; near him was a gazelle, to glad J with his dark blue 

eye ; and a numerous brood of hens and chickens, who furnish his 
liberal table. On the opposite side of the covered gallery rose up 
the walls of his long, queer, many- windowed, many-galleried house. 
There were wooden lattices to those arched windows, through the 
diamonds of one of which I saw two of the most beautiful, enormous, 
ogling black eyes in the world, looking down upon the interesting 
stranger. Pigeons were flapping, and hopping, and fluttering, and 
cooing about. Happy pigeons, you are, no doubt, fed with crumbs 
from the henn^-tipped fingers of Zuleika ! All this court, cheerful 
in the sunshine, cheerful with the astonishing brilliancy of the eyes 
peering out from the lattice-bars, was as mouldy, ancient, and ruinous 
— as any gentleman’s house in Ireland, let us say. The paint was 
peeling off the rickety old carved galleries ; the arabesques over the 
windows were chipped and worn ; — the ancientness of the place 
rendered it doubly picturesque. I have detained you a long time 
in the outer court. Why the deuce was Zuleika there, with the 
beautiful black eyes ? 

Hence we passed into a large apartment, where there was a 
fountain ; and another domestic made his appearance, taking me in 
charge, and relieving the tawny porter of the gate. This fellow was 
clad in blue too, with a red sash and a grey beard. He conducted 
me into a great hall, where there was a great, large Saracenic oriel 
w’indow. He seated me on a divan ; and stalking off, for a moment, 
returned with a long pipe and a brass chafing-dish : he blew the 
coal for the pipe, which he motioned me to smoke, and left me 
there Avith a respectful bow. This delay, this mystery of servants, 
tliat outer court with the camels, gazelles, and other beautiful-eyed 
things, affected me prodigiously all the time he was staying away * 


A HYDE PARK MOSLEM 1^X1 

and while I was examining the strange apartment and its contents, 
my respect and awe for the owner increased vastly. 

As you will be glad to know how an Oriental nobleman (such as 

J undoubtedly is) is lodged and garnished, let me describe the 

contents of this hall of audience. It is ab®ut forty feet long, and 
eighteen or twenty high. All the ceiling is carved, gilt, painted 
and embroidered with arabesques, and choice sentences of Eastern 
writing. Some Mameluke Aga, or Bey, whom Mehemet Ali invited 
to breakfast and massacred, was the proprietor of this mansion once : 
it has grown dingier, but, perhaps, handsomer, since his time. 
Opposite the divan is a great bay-window, with a divan likewise 
round the niche. It looks out upon a garden about the size of 
Fountain Court, Temple; surrounded by the tall houses of the 
quarter. The garden is full of green. A great palm-tree springs 
up in the midst, with plentiful shrubberies, and a talking fountain. 
The room beside the divan is furnished with one deal table, value 
five shillings ; four wooden chairs, value six shillings ; and a couple 
of mats and carpets. The table and chairs are luxuries imported 
from Europe. The regular Oriental dinner is put upon copper trays, 

which are laid upon low stools. Hence J Eftendi’s house may 

be said to be much more sumptuously furnished than those of the 
Beys and Agas his neighbours. 

When these things had been examined at leisure, J appeared. 

Could it be the exquisite of the “ Europa” and the “ Trois Fr^res ” % 
A man — in a long yellow gown, with a long beard somewhat tinged 
with grey, with his head shaved, and wearing on it, first, a white 
wadded cotton nightcap ; second, a red tarboosh — made his ap- 
pearance and welcomed me cordially. It was some time, as the 

Americans say, before I could “realise” the semillant J of old 

times. 

He shuffled off his outer slippers before he curled up on the 
divan beside me. He clapped his hands, and languidly called 
“ Mustapha.” Mustapha came with more lights, pipes, and coffee ; 
and then we fell to talking about London, and I gave him the last 
news of the comrades in that dear city. As we talked, his Oriental 
coolness and languor gave way to British cordiality; he was the 
most amusing companion of the club once more. 

He has adapted himself outwardly, however, to the Oriental 
life. When he goes abroad he rides a grey horse with red housings, 
and has two servants to walk beside him. He wears a very hand- 
some grave costume of dark blue, consisting of an embroidered 
jacket and gaiters, and a pair of trousers, which would make a set 
of dresses for an English family. His beard curls nobly over his 
chest, his Damascus scimitar on his thigh. His red cap gives him 


728 JOURNEY FROM CORNHILL TO CAIRO 


a venerable and Bey-like appearance. There is no gewgaw or 
parade about him, as in some of your dandified young Agas. I 
should say that he is a Major-General of Engineers, or a grave officer 
of State. We and the Turkified European, who found us at dinner, 
sat smoking in solemn divan. 

His dinners were excellent; they were cooked by a regular 
Egyptian female cook. We had delicate cucumbers stuffed with 
forced-meats ; yellow smoking pilaffs, the pride of the Oriental 
cuisine ; kid and fowls h, I’Aboukir and k la Pyramide : a number 
of little savoury plates of legumes of the vegetable-marrow sort : 
kibobs with an excellent sauce of plums and piquant herbs. We 
ended the repast with ruby pomegranates, pulled to pieces, deliciously 
cool and pleasant. For the meats, we certainly ate them with the 
Infidel knife and fork : but for the fruit, we put our hands into the 
dish and flicked them into our mouths in what cannot but be the 
true Oriental manner. I asked for lamb and pistachio-nuts, and 
cream-tarts au poivre ; but J.’s cook did not furnish us with either 
of those historic dishes. And for drink, we had water freshened in 
the porous little pots of grey clay, at whose spout every traveller in 
the East has sucked delighted. Also, it must be confessed, we 
drank certain sherbets, prepared by the two great rivals, Hadji 
Hodson and Bass Bey — the bitterest and most delicious of draughts ! 
0 divine Hodson ! a camel’s load of thy beer came from Beyrout to 
Jerusalem while we were there. How shall I ever forget the joy 
inspired by one of those foaming cool flasks 1 

We don’t know the luxury of thirst in English climes. Sedentary 
men in cities at least have seldom ascerfiiined it; but when they travel, 
our countrymen guard against it well. The road between Cairo and 
Suez i^jonche with soda-water corks. Tom Tliiimb and his brothers 
might track their way across the desert by those landmarks. 

Cairo is magnificently picturesque : it is fine to have palm-trees 
in your gardens, and ride about on a camel ; but, after all, I was 
anxious to know what were the particular excitements of Eastern 

life, which detained J , who is a town-bred man, from his 

natural pleasures and occupations in London ; where his family 
don’t hear from him, where his room is still kept ready at liome, 
and his name is on the list of his club ; and where his neglected 
sisters tremble to think that their Frederick is going about with a 
great beard and a crooked sword, dressed up like an odious Turk. 
In a “ lark ” such a costume may be very well ; but home, London, 
a razor, your sister to make tea, a pair of moderate Christian 
breeches in lieu of those enormous Turkisli shulwars, are vastly 
more convenient in the long run. What was it that kept him 
away from these decent and accustomed delights ? 


AN EASTERN ACQUAINTANCE 729 

It couldn’t be the black eyes in the balcony — upon his honour 
she was only the black cook, who has done tlie pilaff, and stuffed 
the cucumbers. No, it was an indulgence of laziness such as 
Europeans, Englishmen, at least, don’t know how to enjoy. Here 
he lives like a languid Lotus-eater — a dreamy, hazy, lazy, tobaccofied 
life. He was away from evening parties, he said : he needn’t wear 
white kid gloves, or starched neckcloths, or read a newspaper. And 
even this life at Cairo was too civilised for him : Englishmen passed 
through ; old acquaintances would call : the great pleasure of 
pleasures was life in the desert, — under the tents, with still more 
nothing to do than in Cairo ; now smoking, now cantering on Arabs, 
and no crowd to jostle you ; solemn contemplations of the stars at 
night, as the camels were picketed, and the fires and the pipes 
were lighted. 

The night-scene in the city is very striking for its vastness and 
loneliness. Everybody has gone to rest long before ten o’clock. 
There are no lights in tlie enormous buildings; only the stars 
blazing above, with their astonishing brilliancy, in the blue peaceful 
sky. Your guides carry a couple of little lanterns which redouble 
the darkness in the solitary echoing street. Mysterious people are 
curled up and sleeping in the porches. A patrol of soldiers passes, 
and hails you. There is a light yet in one mosque, where some 
devotees are at prayers all night ; and you hear the queerest nasal 
musie proceeding from those pious believers. As you pass the 
madhouse, there is one poor fellow still talking to the moon — no 
sleep for him. He howls and sings there all the night — quite 
cheerfully, however. He has not lost his vanity with his reason : 
he is a Prince in spite of the bars and the straw. 

What to say about those famous edifices, which has not been 
better said elsewhere? — but you will not believe that we visited 
them, unless I bring some token from them. 

That white-capped lad skipped up the stones with a jug of 
water in his hand, to refresh weary climbers ; and squats himself 
down on the summit. The vast flat landscape stretches behind 
him ; the great winding river ; the purple city, with forts, and 
domes, and spires ; the green fields, and palm-groves, and speckled 
villages; the plains still covered with shining inundations — the 
landscape stretches far far away, until it is lost and mingled in the 
golden horizon It is poor work tliis landscape-painting in print. 
Shelley’s two sonnets are the best views that I know of the 
Pyramids — better than the reality ; for a man may lay down the 
book, and in quiet fancy conjure up a picture out of these magni- 
ficent words, which shan’t be disturbed by any pettinesses or mean 


730 JOURNEY FROM CORNHILL TO CAIRO 

realities, — such as the swarms of howling beggars, who jostle you 
about the actual place, and scream in your ears incessantly, and 
hang on your skirts, and bawl for money. 

The ride to the Pyramids is one of the pleasantest possible. 
In the fall of the year, though the sky is almost cloudless above 
you, the sun is not too hot to bear ; and the landscape, refreshed 
by the subsiding inundations, delightfully green and cheerful. We 
made up a party of some half-dozen from the hotel, a lady (the 
kind soda-water provider, for whose hospitality the most grateful 
compliments are hereby offered) being of the company, bent like 
the rest upon going to the summit of Cheops. Those who were 
cautious and wise, took a brace of donkeys. At least five times 
during the route did my animals fall with me, causing me to repeat 
the desert experiment over again, but with more success. The 
space between a moderate pair of legs and the ground, is not many 
inches. By eschewing stirrups, the donkey could fall, and the rider 
alight on the ground, with the greatest ease and grace. Almost 
everybody was down and up again in the course of the day. 

We passed tlirough the Ezbekieh and by the suburbs of the 
town, where the garden-houses of the Egyptian noblesse are situated, 
to Old Cairo, where a ferry-boat took the whole party across the 
Nile, with that noise and bawling volubility in which the Arab 
people seem to be so unlike the grave and silent Turks ; and so 
took our course for some eight or ten miles over the devious tract 
whioii the still outlying waters obliged us to pursue. The Pyramids 
were in sight the whole way. One or two thin silvery clouds were 
hovering over them, and casting delicate rosy shadows upon the 
grand simple old piles. Along the track we saw a score of pleasant 
pictures of Eastern life : — The Pasha’s horses and slaves stood 
caparisoned at his door; at the gate of one country-house, I am 
sorry to say, the Bey’s gig was in waiting, — a most unrornantic 
chariot; the husbandmen were coming into the city, with their 
strings of donkeys and their loads; as they arrived, they stopped 
and sucked at the fountain : a column of red-capped troops passed 
to drill, with slouched gait, white uniforms, and glittering bayonets. 
Then we had the pictures at the quay : the ferry-boat, and the red- 
sailed river-boat, getting under way, and bound up the stream. 
There was the grain market, and the huts on the opposite side; 
and that beautiful woman, with silver armlets, and a face the colour 
of gold, which (the nose-bag having been luckily removed) beamed 
solemnly on us Europeans, like a great yellow harvest moon. The 
bunches of purpling dates were pending from the branches ; grey 
cranes or herons were flying over the cool shining lakes, that the 
river’s overflow had left behind ; water was gurgling through the 


PIGMIES AND PYRAMIDS 


731 


courses by the rude locks and barriers formed there, and overflowing 
this patch of ground ; whilst the neighbouring field was fast budding 
into the more brilliant fresh green. Single dromedaries were 
stepping along, their riders lolling on their haunches ; low sail-boats 
were lying in the canals ; now, we crossed an old marble bridge ; 
now, we went, one by one, over a ridge of slippery earth ; now, we 
floundered through a small lake of mud. At last, at about half a 
mile off the Pyramid, we came to a piece of water some two-score 
yards broad, where a regiment of half-naked Arabs, seizing upon 
each individual of the party, bore us off on their shoulders, to the 
laughter of all, and the great perplexity of several, who every 
moment expected to be pitched into one of the many holes with 
which the treacherous lake abounded. 

It was nothing but joking and laughter, bullying of guides, 
shouting for interpreters, quarrelling about sixpences. We were 
acting a farce, with the Pyramids for the scene. There they rose 
up enormous under our eyes, and the most absurd trivial things 
were going on under their shadow. The sublime had disappeared, 
vast as they were. Do you remember how Gulliver lost his awe 
of the tremendous Brobdingnag ladies'! Every traveller must go 
through all sorts of chaffering, and bargaining, and paltry experiences, 
at this spot. You look up the tremendous steps, with a score of 
savage ruffians bellowing round you ; you hear faint cheers and cries 
high up, and catch sight of little reptiles crawling upwards ; or, 
having achieved the summit, they come hopping and bouncing dowm 
again from degree to degree, — the cheers and cries swell louder and 
more disagreeable ; presently the little jumping thing, no bigger 
than an insect a moment ago, bounces down upon you expanded 
into a panting Major of Bengal cavalry. He drives off the Arabs 
with an oath, — wipes his red shining face with his yellow l«ind- 
kerchief, drops puffing on the sand in a shady corner, where cold 
fowl and hard eggs are awaiting him, and the next minute you see 
his nose plunged in a foaming beaker of brandy and soda-water. 
He can say now, and for ever, he has been up the Pyramid. There 
is nothing sublime in it. You cast your eye once more up that 
staggering perspective of a zigzag line, which ends at the summit, 
and wish you were up there — and down again. Forwards ! — Up 
with you ! It must be done. Six Arabs are behind you, who 
-won’t let you escape if you would. 

The importunity of these ruffians is a ludicrous annoyance to 
which a traveller must submit. For two miles before you reach 
the Pyramids they seize on you and never cease howling. Five or 
six of them pounce upon one victim, and never leave him until they 
have carried him up and down. Sometimes they conspire to run a 


732 JOURNEY FROM CORNHILL TO CAIRO 

man up the huge stair, and bring him, half-killed and fainting, to the 
top. Always a couple of brutes insist upon impelling you stern- 
wards ; from whom the only means to release yourself is to kick out 
vigorously and unmercifully, when the Arabs will possibly retreat. 
The ascent is not the least romantic, or difficvdt, or sublime : you 
walk up a great broken staircase, of which some of the steps are 
four feet high. It’s not hard, only a little high. You see no better 
view from the top than you behold from the bottom ; only a little 
more river, and sand, and ricefield. You jump down the big steps 
at your leisure ; but your meditations you must keep for after-times, 
— the cursed shrieking of the Arabs prevents all thought or leisure. 

And this is all you have to tell about the Pyramids 1 Oh ! 

for shame ! Not a compliment to their age and sizel Not a big 
phrase, — not a rapture 1 Do you mean to say that you had no 
feeling of respect and awel Try, man, and build up a monument 
of words as lofty as they are — they, whom “iniber edax” and 
“aquilo impotens” and the flight of ages have not been able to 
destroy. 

No : be that work for great geniuses, great painters, great 

poets ! This quill was never made to take such flights ; it comes 
of the wing of a humble domestic bird, who walks a common ; who 
talks a great deal (and hisses sometimes) ; who can’t fly far or high, 
and drops always very quickly ; and whose unromantic end is, to 
be laid on a Michaelmas or Christmas table, and there to be dis- 
cussed for half-an-hour — let us hope, with some relish. 


Another week saw us in the Quarantine Harbour at Malta, 
where seventeen days of prison and quiet were almost agreeable, 
after the incessant sight-seeing of the last two months. In the 
interval, between the 23rd of August and the 27th of October, -we 
may boast of having seen more men and cities than most travellers 
have seen in such a time : — Lisbon, Cadiz, Gibraltar, Malta, Athens, 
Smyrna, Constantinople, Jerusalem, Cairo. I shall have the carpet- 
bag, which has visited tliese places in company with its owner, 
embroidered with their names : as military flags are emblazoned, 
and laid up in ordinary, to be looked at in old age. With what a 
number of sights and pictures, — of novel sensations, and lasting and 
deliglitful remembrances, does a man furnish his mind after such 
a tour ! You forget all the annoyances of travel ; but the pleasure 
remains with you, through that kind provision of nature by which 
a man forgets being ill, but thinks with joy of getting well, and can 
remember all the minute circumstances of his convalescence. I 


THINGS TO THINK OF 


733 


forget what sea-sickness is now : though it occupies a woeful portion 
of my Journal. There was a time on board when the bitter ale 
was decidedly muddy ; and the cook of the ship deserting at 
Constantinople, it must be confessed his successor took some time 
before lie got his hand in. These sorrows have passed away 
with the soothing influence of time : the pleasures of the voyage 
remain, let us hope, as long as life will endure. It was but for a 
couple of days that those shining columns of the Parthenon glowed 
under the blue sky there ; but the experience of a life could scarcely 
impress them more vividly. We saw Cadiz only for an hour ; but 
the white buildings, and the glorious blue sea, how clear they are 
to the memory ! — with the tang of that gipsy’s guitar dancing in 
the market-place, in the midst of the fruit, and the beggars, and 
the sunshine. Who can forget the Bosphorus, the brightest and 
fairest scene in all the world ; or the towering lines of Gibraltar ; 
or the great piles of Mafra, as we rode into the Tagus'? As I 
write this, and think, back comes Rhodes, with its old towers and 
artillery, and that wonderful atmosphere, and that astonishing blue 
sea whidi environs the island. The Arab riders go pacing over the 
plains of Sharon in the rosy twilight, just before sunrise ; and I 
can see the ghastly Moab mountains, wdth the Dead Sea gleaming 
before them, from the mosque on the way towards Bethany. The 
black gnarled trees of Gethsemane lie at the foot of Olivet, and the 
yellow ramparts of the city rise up on the stony hills beyond. 

But the happiest and best of all the recollections, perhaps, are 
those of the hours passed at night on the deck, when the stars were 
shining overhead, and the hours were tolled at their time, and your 
thoughts were flxed upon home far away. As the sun rose I once 
heard the priest, from the minaret of Constantinople, crying out, 
“ Come to prayer,” with his shrill voice ringing through the clear 
air; and saw, at the same hour, the Arab prostrate himself and 
pray, and the Jew Rabbi, bending over his book, and worshipping 
the Maker of Turk and Jew. Sitting at home in London, and 
writing this last line of farewell, those figures come back the clearest 
of all to the memory, with the picture, too, of our ship sailing over 
the peaceful Sabbath sea, and our own prayers and services cele- 
brated there. So each, in his fashion, and after his kind, is bowing 
down, and adoring the Father, who is equally above all. Cavil 
not, you brother or sister, if your neighbour’s voice is not like 
yours; only hope that his words are honest (as far as they may 
be), and his heart humble and thankful. 




SULTAN STORK 




SULTAN STORK 


BEING 

THE ONE THOUSAND AND SECOND NIGHT 

TRANSLATED FROM THE PERSIAN 

Bv Major G. O’G. GAHAGAN, H.E.I.C.S. 

PART THE FIRST 

THE MAGIC POIFDER 

A FTER those long wars,” began Scheherazade, as soon as her 
husband had given the accustomed signal, “ after those long 
^ ^ wars in Persia, which ended in the destruction of the ancient 
and monstrous Ghebir, or fire-worship, in that country, and the 
triumph of our holy religion : for though, my lord, the Persians are 
Soonies by creed, and not followers of Omar, as every true believer 
in the Prophet ought to be, nevertheless ” 

“ A truce to your nevertheless, madam,” interrupted the Sultan, 
“ I want to hear a story, and not a controversy.” 

“Well, sir, after the expulsion of the Ahrimanians, King Abdul- 
raman governed Persia worthily until he died after a surfeit of 
peaches, and left his throne to his son Mushook, or the Beautiful, — 
a title, by the way,” remarked Scheherazade, blushing, and casting 
down her lovely eyes, “ which ought at present to belong to your 
Majesty.” 

Although the Sultan only muttered, “ Stuff and nonsense, get 
along with you,” it was evident, by the blush in the royal counte- 
nance, and the smile which lightened up the black waves of the 
imperial beard, as a sunbeam does the sea, that his Majesty was 
pleased, and that the storm was about to disappear. Scheherazade 
continued : — 

“ Mushook, ascending the throne, passed honourably the first 
5 3 A 


738 


SULTAN STORK 


year of his reign in perfecting the work so happily begun by his 
royal father. He caused a general slaughter of all the Ghebirs in 
his land to take place, not only of the royal family, but of the 
common sort ; nor of the latter did there remain any unkilled (if I 
may coin such a word) or unconverted : and, as to the former, they 
were extirpated root and branch, with the exception of one most 
dogged enchanter and Ahrimanian, Ghuzroo by name, who, with his 
son Ameen-Adawb, managed to escape out of Persia, and fled to 
India, where still existed some remnants of their miserably super- 
stitious race. But Bombay is a long way from Persia, and at tlie 
former place it was that Ghuzroo and his son took refuge, giving 
themselves up to their diabolical enchantments and worship, and 
calling themselves King and Prince of Persia. For them, however, 
their plans and their pretensions. King Mushook little cared, often 
singing, in allusion to them, those well-known verses of Hafiz : — 

“ ‘ Buldoo says that he is the rightful owner of the rice-field, 

And declares that the lamb is his undisputed property. 

Brag, 0 Buldoo, about your rights and your possessions ; 

But the lamb and rice are his who dines on the pillau.’ ” 

The Sultan could hardly contain himself for laughing at this 
admirable epigram, and, without farther interruption, Scheherazade 
continued her story : — 

“ King Mushook was then firmly established on his throne, and 
had for his Vizier that famous and worthy statesman Munsoor ; one of 
the ugliest and oldest, but also one of the wisest of men, and attached 
beyond everything to the Mushook dynasty, though his teeth had 
been knocked out by the royal slipper.” 

•‘And, no doubt, Musliook served him right,” observed the 
Sultan. 

“Though his teeth had been knocked out, yet wisdom and 
persuasion ever hung on his lips ; though one of his eyes, in a fit 
of royal indignation, had been closed for ever, yet no two eyes in 
all the empire were as keen as his remaining ball; he was, in a 
word, the very best and honestest of Viziers, as fat and merry, too, 
as he was wise and faithful. 

“ One day as Shah Mushook was seated after dinner in his 
beautiful garden-pavilion at Tehran, sick of political affairs, which 
is no wonder, — sick even of the beautiful houris who had been 
dancing before him to the sound of lutes and mandolins — tired of 
the jokes and antics of his buffoons and story-tellers — let me say 
at once dyspeptic, and in a shocking ill-humour ; old Munsoor (who 
had already had the royal pipe and slippers ffung half-a-dozen times 
at his head), willing by any means to dissipate his master’s ill-will, 


THE MAGIC POWDER 


739 


lighted ill the outer courts of the palace, as he was hieing discon- 
solately home, upon an old pedlar-woman, who was displaying her 
wares to a crowd of wondering persons and palace servants, and 
making them die with laughing at her jokes. 

“The Vizier drew near, heard her jokes,* and examined her 
wares, which were extraordinarily beautiful, and determined to con- 
duct her into the august presence of the King. 

“ Mushook was so pleased with her stock in trade, that, like a 
royal and generous prince, he determined to purchase her whole 
pack, box, trinkets, and all ; giving her own price for them. So 
she yielded up her box, only taking out of one of the drawers a little 
bottle, surrounded by a paper, not much bigger than an ordinary 
bottle of Macassar oil.” 

“ Macassar oil ! Here’s an anachronism ! ” thought the Sultan. 
But he suffered his wife to proceed with her tale. 

“ The old woman was putting this bottle away into her pocket, 
when the Sultan’s eye lighted upon it, and he asked her, in a fury, 
why she was making off with his property 1 

“ She said she had sold him the whole pack, with the exception 
of that bottle ; and that it could be of no good to him, as it was 
only a common old crystal bottle, a family piece, of no sort of use 
to any but the owner. 

“ ‘ What is there in the bottle ? ’ exclaimed the keen and astute 
Vizier. 

“At this the old woman blushed as far as her weazened old 
face could blush, hemmed, ha’d, stuttered, and showed evident signs 
of confusion. She said it was only a common bottle — that there 
was nothing in it — that is, only a powder — a little rhubarb. 

“ ‘ It’s poison ! ’ roared Mushook ; ‘ I’m sure it’s poison ! ’ And 
he forthwith seized the old hag by the throat, and would have strangled 
her, if the Vizier had not wisely interposed, remarking, that if the 
w'oman were strangled there could be no means of knowing what the 
bottle contained. 

“ ‘ To show you, sire, that it is not poison,’ cried the old 
creature to the King, who by this time had wrenched the bottle 
out of her pocket, and held it in his hand ; ‘ I will take a little 
of the powder it contains.’ Whereupon his Majesty called for a 
teaspoon, determined to administer the powder to her himself. 
The chief of the eunuchs brought the teaspoon, the King emptied 
a little of the powder into it, and bidding the old wretch open her 
great, black, gaping, ruinous mouth, put a little of the powder on 
her tongue; when, to his astonishment, and as true as I sit here, 

* These, as they have no sort of point except for the Persian scholar, are 
here entirely omitted. — G. O’G. G. 


740 


SULTAN STORK 


her old hooked beak of a nose (which, by way of precaution, he 
was holding in his fingers) slipped from between them; the old, 
black tongue, on which he placed the teaspoon, disappeared from 
under it ; and not only the nose and the tongue, but the whole old 
woman vanished away entirely, and his Majesty stood there with 
his two hands extended — the one looking as if it pulled an 
imaginary nose, the other holding an empty teaspoon ; and he 
himself staring wildly at vacancy ! ” 

“ Scheherazade,” said the Sultan gravely, “ you are drawing the 
longbow a little too strongly. In the thousand and one nights 
that we have passed together, I have given credit to every syllable 
you uttered. But this tale about the old v/oman, my love, is, 
upon my honour, too monstrous.” 

•‘Not a whit, sir; and I assure your Majesty that it is as true 
as the Koran itself. It is a fact perfectly well authenticated, and 
written afterwards, by King Mushook’s orders, in the Persian 
annals. The old woman vanished altogether; the King was left 
standing there witii the bottle and spoon ; the Vizier was dumb 
with wonder ; and the only thing seen to quit the room was a 
little canary-bird, that suddenly started up before the King’s face, 
and chirping out ‘kikiriki,’ flew out of the open window, skimmed 
over the ponds and plane trees in the garden, and was last seen 
wheeling round and round the minaret of the great mosque of 
Tehran.” 

“ Mashallah 1 ” exclaimed the Sultan. “ Heaven is great : but 
I never should have credited the tale, had not you, my love, 
vouched for it. Go on, madam, and tell us what became of the 
bottle and Sultan Mushook.” 

Sir, when the King had recovered from his astonishment, he 
fell, as his custom was, into a fury, and could only be calmed by 
the arguments and persuasions of the Grand Vizier. 

“ ‘ It is evident, sire,’ observed that dignitary, ‘ that tlie powder 
which you have just administered possesses some magic property, 
either to make the persons taking it invisible, or else to cause them 
to change into the form of some bird or other animal ; and very 
possibly the canary-bird which so suddenly appeared and disappeared 
just now, was the very old woman with whom your Majesty was 
talking. We can easily see whether the powder creates invisibility, 
by trying its effects upon some one — the chief of the eunuchs for 
example.’ And accordingly Hudge Gudge, the chief of the eunuchs, 
against whom the Vizier had an old grudge, was compelled, with 
many wry fixces, to taste the mixture. 

“ ‘ Thou art so ugly, Hudge Gudge,’ exclaimed the Vizier with 
a grin, ‘ that to render thee invisible will only be conferring a benefit 


THE MAGIC POWDER 


741 


upon tliee.’ But, strange to say, though the eunuch was made to 
swallow a large dose, the powder had no sort of eflect upon him, 
and he stood before his Majesty and the Prime Minister as ugly 
and as visible as ever. 

“ They now thought of looking at the paper in which the bottle 
was w'ra])ped, and the King, not knowing how to read himself, bade 
the Grand Vizier explain to him the meaning of the writing which 
appeared upon the paper. 

“ But the Vizier confessed, after examining the document, that 
he could not understand it ; and though it was presented at the 
divan that day, to all the councillors, mollahs, and men learned in 
the law, not one of them could understand a syllable of the strange 
characters written on the paper. The council broke up in consterna- 
tion ; for his Majesty swore, that if the paper was not translated 
before the next day at noon, he would bastinado every one of the 
Ijrivy council, beginning with his Excellency the Grand Vizier. 

“ ‘ Who has such a shkrp wit as necessity ? ’ touchingly exclaims 
the poet Sadee, and so, in ccuToboration of .the words of that divine 
songster, the next day at noon, sure enough, a man was found — a 
most ancient, learned, and holy dervish, who knew all the languages 
under the sun, and, by consequence, tliat in which the paper was 
written. 

“ It was in the most secret Sanscrit tongue ; and when the 
dervish read it, he requested that he might communicate its contents 
privately to his Majesty, or at least only in the presence of his first 
minister. 

“ Retiring then to the private apartments with the Vizier, his 
Majesty bade the dervish interpret the meaning of the writing round 
the bottle. 

“‘The meaning, sire, is this,’ said the learned dervish. ‘Who- 
ever, after bowing his head three times to the east ’ 

“ ‘ The old woman waggled hers,’ cried the King : ‘ I remarked 
it, but thought it was only palsy.’ 

“ ‘ Whoever, after bowing his head three times to the east, swal- 
lows a grain of this powder, may change himself into whatever animal 
he please : be it beast, or insect, or bird. LikeAvise, when he is so 
changed, he Avill know the language of beasts, insects, and birds, 
and be able to ansAver each after his kind. And when the person 
so transformed desires to be restored to his own shape, he has only 
to utter the name of tlie god “ Budgaroo,” Avho himself appeared 
upon earth in the shape of beasts, birds, ay, and fishes,* and he 
Avill instantly resume his proper figure. But let the person using 

* In Professor Schwam’s “ Sanskritische Alterthumskunde,” is a learned 
account of the transmutations of this Indian divinity. — G. O’G. G. 


742 


SULTAN STORK 


this precious powder especially beware, that ’during the course of his 
metamorphosis he do not give way to laughter ; for should he indulge 
in any such unholy mirth, his memory will infallibly forsake him, 
.and not being able to recall the talismanic word, he will remain in 
the shape into which he has changed himself.’ 

“ Wlien this strange document had been communicated to his 
Majesty, he caused the dervish’s mouth to be filled with sugar-candy, 
gave him a purse of gold, and bade him depart with every honour. 

“ ‘ You had better at least have waited,’ said the shrewd Vizier, 

‘ to see if the interpretation be correct, for who can tell whether this 
dervish is deceiving us or no U 

“ King Mushook rejoined that that point should be put at rest 
at once, and, grimly smiling, ordered the Vizier to take a pinch of 
powder, and change himself into whatever animal he pleased. 

“ Munsoor had nothing for it but to wish himself a dog ; he 
turned to the east, nodded his head thrice, swallowed the powder, 
and lo ! there he was — a poodle — an old, fiit, lame, one-eyed poodle ; 
whose appearance made his master laugh inordinately, though Mun- 
soor himself, remembering the prohibition and penalty, was far too 
wise to indulge in any such cacliinnation. 

“ Having satisfied his royal master by his antics, the old Vizier 
uttered the requisite word, and was speedily restored to his former 
shape. 

“ And now I might tell how the King of Persia and his faithful 
attendant indulged themselves in all sorts of transformations by the 
use of the powder ; how they frequented the society of all manner 
of beasts, and gathered a deal of wisdom from their conversation ; 
how, perching on this housetop in the likeness of sparrows, they 
peered into all the family secrets of the proprietors ; how, buzzing 
into that harem window in the likeness of bluebottle flies, they sur- 
veyed at their leisure the beauties within, and enjoyed the confusion 
of the emirs and noblemen, when they described to them at divan 
every particular regarding the shape, and features, and dress, of the 
ladies they kept so secretly in the anderoon. One of these freaks 
had like to have cost the King dear ; for sitting on Hassan Ebu 
Suneebee’s wall, looking at Bulkous, his wife, and lost in admiration 
of that moon of beauty, a spider issued out from a crevice, and had 
as nearly as possible gobbled up the King of Persia. This event 
was a lesson to him, therefore ; and he was so frightened by it, that 
he did not care for the future to be too curious about other people’s 
affairs, or at least to take upon himself the form of such a fragile 
thing as a bluebottle fly. 

“ One morning — indeed I believe on my conscience that his 
Majesty and the Vizier had been gadding all night, or they never 


THE MAGIC POWDER 


743 


could have been abroad so early — they were passing those large 
swampy grounds, which everybody knows are in the neighbourhood 
of Tehran, and where the Persian lords are in the habit of hunting 
herons with the hawk. The two gentlemen were disguised, I don’t 
know how ; but seeing a stork by the side of the pool, stretch- 
ing its long neck, and tossing about its legs very queerly. King 
Mushook felt suddenly a longing to know what these motions of the 
animal meant, and taking upon themselves likewise the likeness of 
storks (the Vizier’s dumpy nose stretched out into a very strange 
bill, I promise you), they both advanced to the bird at the pool, 
and greeted it in the true storkish language. 

“ ‘ Good morning, Mr. Long Bill,’ said the stork (a female), 
curtseying politely, ‘ you arc abroad early to-day ; and the sharp 
air, no doubt, makes you hungry : here is half an eel which I beg 
you to try, or a frog, wdiicli you will find very fat and tender.’ But 
the royal stork was not inclined to eat frogs, being no Frank.” 

“ Have a care, Scheherazade,” here interposed the Sultan. “ Do 
you mean to tell me that there are any people, even among the 
unbelievers, who are such filthy wretches as to eat frogs 1— Bah ! I 
can’t believe it ! ” 

Scheherazade did not vouch for the fact, but continued. “ The 
King declined the proffered breakfast, and presently falling into 
conversation with the young female stork, bantered her gaily about 
her presence in such a place of a morning, and without her mamma, 
praised her figure and the slimness of her legs (which made the young 
stork blush till she was almost as red as a flamingo), and paid her 
a thousand compliments that made her think the stranger one of 
the most delightful creatures she had ever met. 

“ ‘ Sir,’ said she, ‘ we live in some reeds hard by ; and as my 
mamma, one of the best mothers in the world, who fed us children 
with her own blood when we had nothing else for dinner, is no 
more, my papa, who is always lazy, has bidden us to look out for 

ourselves. You were pleased just now to compliment my 1 

my limbs, ^ says the stork, turning her eyes to the ground ; ‘ and the 
fact is, that I wish to profit, sir, by those graces with which nature 
endowed me, and am learning to dance. I came out here to practise 
a little step that I am to perform before some friends this morning, 
and here, sir, you have my history.’ 

“ ‘I do pray and beseech you to let us see the rehearsal of the 
step,’ said the King, quite amused ; on which the young stork, 
stretching out her scraggy neck, and giving him an ogle with her 
fish-like eyes, fell to dancing and capering in such a ridiculous way, 
that the King and Vizier could restrain their gravity no longer, but 
burst out into an immoderate fit of laughter. I do not know that 


744 


SULTAN STORK 


Munsoor would have laughed of his own accord, for he was a man 
of no sort of humour ; but he made it a point whenever his master 
laughed always to roar too ; and in this instance his servility cost 
him dear. 

“ Tlie young female stork, as they were laughing, flew away in 
a huff, and thought them no doubt the most ill-mannered brutes in 
the world. When they were restored to decent gravity, the King 
voted that they should resume their shapes again, and hie home to 
breakflist. So he turned himself round to the east, bobbed his head 
three times according to the receipt, and — 

“ ‘ Vizier,’ said he, ‘ what the deuce is the word ? — Hudge, kudge, 
fudge — what is it ? ’ 

“ The Vizier had forgotten too ; and then the condition annexed 
to the charm came over these wretched men, and they felt they 
were storks for ever. In vain they racked their poor brains to 
discover the word — they were no wiser at the close of the day than 
at the beginning, and at nightfall were fain to take wing from the 
lonely morass where they had passed so many miserable hours, and 
seek for shelter somewhere.” 


PART THE SECOND 


THE ENCHANTED PRINCESS 


^TER flying about for some time, the poor storks perched upon 



the palace, where it was evident that all was in consterna- 


^ tion. ‘ Ah ! ’ said the King, with a sigh, ‘ why, 0 cursed 
Vizier, didst thou ever bring that beggar-woman into my presence ? 
here it is an hour after sunset, and at this hour I should have been 
seated at a comfortable supper, but for thy odious ofticiousness, and 
my own fatal curiosity.’ 

“ What his Majesty said was true ; and, having eaten nothing all 
day (for they could not make up their stomachs to subsist upon raw 
frogs and fish), he saw, to his inexpressible mortification, his own 
supper brought into the royal closet at the usual hour, taken away 
from thence, and the greater part of it eaten up by the servants as 
they carried it back to the kitchen. 

“ For three days longer, as they lingered about Tehran, that city 
was ill evident dismay and sorrow. On the first day a council was 
held, and a great deal of discussion took place between the mollahs 
and emirs ; on the second day another council was held, and all the 
mollahs and emirs swore eternal fidelity to King Mushook ; on the 
third day a tliird council was held, and they voted to a man that 
all faitlifiil Persians had long desired the return of their rightful 
sovereign and worship, and proclaimed Ghuzroo Sultan of Persia, 
Ghuzroo and his sou, Ameen Adawb, entered the divan. What a 
thrill passed through the bosom of Mushook (who was perched on a 
window of the hall) when he saw Ghuzroo walk up and take posses- 
sion of his august throne, and beheld in the countenance of that 
unbeliever the traits of the very old woman who had sold him 
the box ! 

“ It would be tedious to describe to your Majesty the number- 
less voyages and the long dreary flights which the unhappy Sultan 
and Vizier no^v took. There is hardly a mosque in all Pers^ or 
Arabia on which they did not light : and as for frogs and fishes, 
they speedily learned to be so little particular as to swallow them 
raw with considerable satisfaction, and, I do believe, tried every 
pond and river in Asia. 


746 


SULTAN STORK 


“ At last they came to India ; and being then somewhere in the 
neighbourhood of Agra, they went to take their evening meal at a 
lake in a wood : the moon was shining on it, and there was upon 
one of the trees an owl hooting and screaming in the most melancholy 
manner. 

“ The two wanderers were discussing their victuals, and it did 
not at first come into their heads to listen to the owl’s bewailings ; 
but as they were satisfied, they began presently to hearken to the 
complaints of the bird of night that sate on a mango tree, its great 
round, white face shining in the moon. The owl sung a little elegy, 
which may be rendered in the following manner : — 

“ ‘ Too — too — too — 00 long have I been in imprisonment ; 

Who — 0 — 0 — 0 is coming to deliver me ? 

In the darkness of the night I look out, and see not my deliverer ; 

I make the grove resound with my strains, but no one hears me. 

‘ I look out at the moon ; — my face was once as fair as hers : 

She is the queen of night, and I was a princess as celebrated. 

, I sit under the cypress trees, and was once as thin as they are : 

Could their dark leaves compare to my raven tresses ? 

‘ I was a princess once, and my talents were everywhere sung of ; 

I was indebted for my popularity not only to beauty but to lohit ; 

Ah, where is the destined prince that is to come to liberate, and to 
who — 0 


“ Cut the verses short, Scheherazade,” said the Sultan. And 
that obedient Princess instantly resumed her story in prose. 

“ ‘What,’ said King Mushook, stepping up to the owl, ‘are you 
the victim of enchantment 1 ’ 

“ ‘ Alas ! kind stranger, of whatever feather you be — for the 
moon is so bright that I cannot see you in the least, — I was a 
princess, as I have just announced in my poem ; and famous, I may 
say, for my beauty all over India. Rotu Muckun is my name, and 
my father is King of Hindostan. A monster from Bombay, an 
idolater and practiser of enchantments, came to my court and asked 
my liand for his son ; but because I spurned the wretch, he, under 
the disguise of an old woman ’ 

“ ‘ With a box of trinkets,’ broke out the Vizier. 

“ ‘ Of no such thing,’ said the owl, or rather the disguised 
Princess Rotu Muckun ; ‘ with a basket of peaches, of which I was 
known to be fond, entered the palace garden one evening as I was 
seated there with my maidens, and offered me a peach, of which I 
partook, and was that instant turned into an owl. My attendants 
fied, screaming at the metamorphosis ; and as the old woman went 


THE ENCHANTED' PRINCESS 747 

a^yay, she clenched her fist at me and laughed, and said, “ Now, 
Princess, you will remember, the vengeance of Ghuzroo.” ’ 

“ ‘ This is indeed marvellous ! ’ exclaimed the King of Persia, 
‘ Know, madam, that the humble individual who now addresses 
you was a year since no other than Persia’s king.’ 

“ ‘ Heavens ! ’ said the Princess, trembling, and rustling all her 
feathers ; ‘ can you be the famous and beautiful Mushook, who 
disappeared from Tehran with his Grand Vizier 1 ’ 

“‘No other, madam,’ said the King, laying his claw on "his 
breast ; ‘ and the most devoted of your servants.’ 

“ ‘ Heigho ! ’ said she ; ‘ I would that you had resumed your 
former shape, ■ and that what you said were true ; but you men, 
I have always heard, are sad, sad deceivers ! ’ 

“ Being pressed farther to explain the meaning of her wish, 
the Princess said that she never could resume her former appearance 
until she could find some one vdio would marry her under her 
present form ; and what was more, she said, an old Brahmin had 
made a prophecy concerning her, that she should be saved from 
destruction by a stork. 

“ ‘ This speech,’ said the Vizier, drawing his Majesty aside, 
‘is the sheerest and most immodest piece of fiction on the part 
of Madam Owl that ever I heard. What is the upshot of it 1 The 
hideous old wretch, pining for a husband, and not being able on 
account of her age and ugliness, doubtless, to procure one among 
birds of her own degree, sees us two slim, elegant, fashionable 
fellows pass, and trumps up instantly a story about her being 
a princess, and the deuce knows what. Even suppose she be 
a princess, let your Majesty remember what the poet Ferooz 
observes — 

“ Womcai are not all beautiful — for one moon-eyed, 

Nine hundred and ninety-nine are as ugly as Shaitan.” 

Let us have a c^re, then, how we listen to her stories.’ 

“ ‘ Vizier,’ answered liis Majesty, ‘ I liave remarked that you are 
always talking about ugliness ; and, by my beard ! you are the 
ugliest man in my dominions. Be she handsome or hideous, I am 
sure that there is something in the story of the Princess mysteriously 
connected with our fate. Do you not remember that extraordinary 
dream which I had in my youth, and wliich declared that I too 
should be saved from danger by an owl 1 Had you not also such 
a dream on the self-same night ? Let us not, therefore^ disregard 
the warnings of Fate : — the risk shall be run, the Princess shall be 
married, or my name’s not Mushook.’ 

“‘Well, sir,’ said the Vizier, with a shrug, ‘if you insist upon 


748 


SULTAN STORK 


marrying lier, I cannot, of course, give any objection to the royal 
will : and your Majesty must remember that I wash my hands of 
the business altogether.’ 

“ ‘ / marry lier ! ’ screametl the King in a rage ; ‘ Vizier, are 
you a fool 1 Do you suppose me such a fool as to buy a pig in a 
poke, as they say in Bagdad ? ’ 

“ ‘ I was sure your Majesty would not be so imprudent,’ said 
the Vizier in a soothing tone. 

“ ‘ Of course I wouldn’t ; no, Vizier, my old and tried servant, 
you shall marry the Princess Rotu Muckun, and incur the risk 
of this adventure.’ 

“The poor Vizier knew he had only to obey, were his master to 
bid him to bite off his own nose ; so lie promised compliance in 
this instance with as good a grace as he could muster. But the 
gentlemen, in the course of this little dispute, had not taken into 
consideration that the owl had wings as well as they, and had 
followed them into the dark brake where the colloquy took place, 
and could see them perfectly, and hear every word that passed. 

“ ‘ Tut-tut-tut-too ! ’ shrieked put the owl in a shrill voice, ‘ my 
lord of Persia, and you. Grand Vizier, do you suppose that I, the 
Princess of Hiudostan, am to be cast about from one person to 
another like a shuttlecock '? Do you suppose that I, the loveliest 
w’oman in the universe, am tamely to listen to doubts regarding my 
beauty, and finally to yield up my charms to an ugly, old decrepit 
monster like your Grand Vizier h ’ 

“ ‘ Madam ■’ interposed the King of Persia. 

“ ^ Tut-tut-too ! don’t madam me, sir,’ ’said the Princess in a 
fluster, — ‘ mademoiselle, if you please ; and mademoiselle to remain, 
rather than be insulted so. Talk about buying a pig in a poke, 
indeed ! here is a pretty gentlemanlike phrase for a monarch who 
has been used to good society ! — pig in a poke, indeed ! Pll tell 
you what, my lord, I have a great mind to make you carry your 
pigs to another market. And as for my poor person, I will see,’ 
cried the owl, sobbing, ‘if some noble-hearted person be not more 
favourable to-to-to-to-f^-to-oo-oo-oo-oo ! ’ Here she set up such an 
hysterical howling, that his Majesty the King of Persia thought 
she would have dropped oft' her perch. 

“ Ho was a good-natured sovereign, and could not bear to see 
the tears of a woman.” 

“ What a fool ! ” said the Sultan. But Scheherazade took no 
notice. 

“And having his heart melted by her sorrows, said to her, 
‘ Cheer up, madam, it shall never be said that Mushook deserted a 
lady in distress. I swear to you by the ninth book of the Koran, 


THE ENCHANTED PRINCESS 


749 


tliat you shall have my hand as soon as I get it hack myself ; in 
the meanwhile accept my claw, and with it the heart of the King 
of Persia.’ 

“‘Oh, sir!’ said the’bwl, ‘this is too great joy — too much 
honour — I cannot,’ said she in a faint voice, ‘bear it ! — 0 Heavens! 
— Maidens, unlace me !— Some water — some water— a jug-jug- 
jug ’ 

“ Here what the King had formerly feared actually took place, 
and the owl, in an excess of emotion, actually tumbled off the 
branch in a fainting fit, and fell into the thicket below. 

“ The Vizier and his Majesty ran like mad to the lake for 
water ; but ah ! what a scene met their view on coming back ! 

“ Forth there came to meet them the loveliest damsel that ever 
greeted the eyes of monarch or vizier. Fancy, sir, a pair of 
eyes ” 

“ Cut the description short, Scheherazade,” interrupted the 
Sultan ; “ your eyes, my dear, are quite pretty enough for me.” 

“ In short, sir, she was the most lovely woman in the world of 
her time ; and the poor old Vizier, as he beheld her, was mad to 
think what a prize he had lost. The King of Persia flung himself 
at her feet, and vowed himself to be the happiest of men.” 

“Happiest of men !” roared out the Sultan. “Why, woman, he 
is a stork ; how did he get back to his shape, I want to know ? ” 

“ Why, sir, it must be confessed that when the Princess of 
Hindostan, now restored to her pristine beauty, saw that no sort of 
change had taken place in her aftianced husband, she felt a little 
ashamed of the connection, and more than once in their journey 
from Agra to the court of her father at Delhi, she thought of giving 
her companion the slip; ‘For how,’ said she, ‘am I to marry a 
stork 1 ’ However, the King would never leave her for a moment out 
of his sight, or, when his Majesty slept, the Vizier kept his eye upon 
her ; and so at last they walked and walked until they came near 
to Delhi on the banks of the Jumna. 

“A magnificent barge was floating down the river, pulled by a 
hundred men with gilded oars, and dressed in liveries of cloth of 
gold. The prow of the barge was shaped like a peacock, and 
formed of precious stones and enamel ; and at the stern of the 
vessel was an awning of crimson silk, supported by pillars of silver, 
hinder which, in a yellow satin robe, covered with diamonds of in- 
tolerable brightness, there sat an old. gentleman smoking, and dis- 
solved seemingly in grief. 

“ ‘ Heavens ! ’ cried the Princess, ‘ ’tis my father ! ’ and straight- 
way she began flapping her pocket-handkerchief, and crying at the 
top of her voice, ‘ Father, father, ’tis your Rotu Muckun calls ! ’ 


750 


SULTAN STORK 


“ When the old gentleman, who was smoking in yellow satin, 
heard that voice, he started up wildly, let drop this hookah, shouted 
hoarsely to the rowers to pull to the shore, and the next minute 
tumbled backwards in a fainting fit. The next minute but one he 
was in tlm arms of his beloved girl, the proudest and happiest of 
fathers. 

“ The Princess at the moment of meeting, and in the hurry of 
running into the boat, had, it must be confessed, quite forgotten her 
two storks ; and as these made an effort to follow her, one of the 
rowers with his gilded oar gave the Grand Vizier a crack over tlie 
leg, which caused that poor functionary to limp for many years 
after. But our wanderers were not to be put. off so. Taking wing, 
they flew right under the awning of the boat, and perched down on 
the sofa close by the King of Hindostan and his daughter. 

“ ‘ What, in Heaven’s name,’ said Hindostan, ‘ are these filthy 
birds, that smell so horribly of fish ? Faugh ! turn them out.’ 

“ ‘ Filthy yourself, sir, my brother,’ answered the King of Persia, 

^ the smell of fish is not much worse than that of tobacco, I warrant. 
Heigho ! I have not had a pipe for many a long day ! ’ 

“Here Rotu Muckun, seeing her father’s wonder that a stork 
should talk his language, and his anger at the bird’s impudence, 
interposed, and related to his Majesty all the circumstances attend- 
ing tlie happy change that had taken place. 

“ While she was speaking (and her story was a pretty long one), 
the King of Persia flung himself biick in an easy attitude on one of 
the sofas, crossing his long legs, and folding" his wings over his chest. 
He was, to tell the truth, rather piqued at the reception which liis 
brother of Hindostan had given him. Old Munsoor stood moodily 
at a little distance, holding up his game leg. 

“His master, how^ever, was determined to show that he w^as 
perfectly at his ease. ‘ Hindostan, my old buck,’ said he, ‘ what 
a deuced comfortable sofa this is ! and, egad, wiiat a neat turn-out 
of a barge ! ’ 

“ The old gentleman, who was a stickler for ceremony, said 
dryly, ‘I am glad your Majesty finds the sofix comfortable, and 
the barge to your liking. Here we don’t call it a barge, but a 
Budgerow.’ 

“As he spoke this word, the King of Persia bounced off his 
seat as if he had been sliot, and upset the hookah over the King 
of Hindostan’s legs ; the moody old Grand Vizier clapped liis win.g8 
and screamed for joy ; the Princess shrieked for astonishment ; and 
the wliole boat’s crew were in wonder, as they saw the two birds 
turn towards the east, bob tlieir long bills three times, and call out 
‘ Budgerow ! ’ 


THE ENCHANTED PRINCESS 


751 


“ At that word the birds disappeared, and in their place, before 
the astonished sovereign of Hindostan, there stood two gentlemen 
in the Persian habit. One of them was fat, old, and one-eyed, of 
a yellow complexion, and limping on a leg — ’twas Munsoor, the 
Vizier. The other — ah, what a thrill passed through Rotii Muckun’s 
heart as she beheld him ! — had a dark countenance, a dark flashing 
eye, a royal black beard, a high forehead, on which a little Persian 
cap was jauntily placed. A pelisse of cashmere and sables covered 
his broad chest, and showed off his excessively slim waist to advan- 
tage ; his little feet were encased in yellow slippers ; when lie spoke, 
his cornelian lips displayed thirty-two jicarly teeth ; in his girdle 
was his sword, and on the hilt of it that famous diamond, worth 
one hundred and forty-three millions of tomauns. 

“When the King of Hindostan saw that diamond, he at once 
knew that Mushook could be no impostor, and taking him heartily 
by the hand, the good-natured monarch ordered servants to pick up 
the pieces of the chillum, and to bring fresh ones for the King of 
Persia and himself. 

“ ‘ You say it is a long time since you smoked a pipe,’ said 
Hindostan waggishly ; ‘ there is a lady here that I dare swear will 
fill one for you.’ With this and other sallies the royal party passed 
on to Delhi, where Munsoor was accommodated with diaculum and 
surgical aid, and where the marriage was celebrated between the 
King of Persia and the Princess of Hindostan.” 

“ And did the King of Persia ever get his kingdom back again ? ” 
asked the Sultan. 

“Of course he did, sir,” replied Scheherazade, “for where did 
you ever hear of a king who had been kept out of his just rights by 
a wicked enchanter, that did not regain his possessions at the end 
of a story? No, sir, at the last page of a tale, wicked enchanters 
are always punished, and suffering virtue always rewarded; and 
though I have my doubts whether in real life ” 

“ Be hanged to your prate, madam, and let me know; at once 
how King Mushook got back his kingdom, and what he did to 
Ghuzroo and his son Ameen Adawb ? ” 

“ Why, sir, marching with five hundred thousand men, whom 
his father-in-law placed under his command. King Mushook went, 
via Caubul and Aftghanistan, into Persia ; he defeated the usurping 
Ghuzroo upon the plains of Tehran, and caused that idolatrous 
monarch to be bastinadoed to death. As for his son, Ameen 
Adawb, as that young Prince had not taken any part in his father’s 
rebellion, Mushook, who was a merciful sovereign, only ordered 
him to take a certain quantity of the powder, and to wish himself 
to be a stork. Then he put him into a cage, and hung him outside 


752 


SULTAN STORK 


the palace -wall. This done, Mushook and his Princess swayed 
magnificently the sceptre of Persia, lived happily, were blest by 
their subjects, had an infinite number of children, and ate pillau and 
rice every day. 

“Now, sir, it happened, after several years’ captivity in the 
cage, that the Prince Ameen Adawb ” 

Here Scheherazade paused ; for, looking at her royal husband, 
she sav/ that his Majesty was fast asleep, and deferred the history 
of Prince Ameen Adawb until another occasion. 


DICKENS IN FRANCE 





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DICKENS IN FKANCE 


« 


EEING placarded on the walls a huge announcement that 



Nicholas Nickleby, ou les Voleurs de Londres,” was to be 


performed at the Ambigu-Comique Theatre on the Boulevard, 
and having read in the Journal des Debats a most stern and ferocious 
criticism upon the piece in question, and upon poor Monsieur 
Dickens, its supposed author, it seemed to me by no means un- 
profitable to lay out fifty sous in the purchase of a stall at the 
theatre, and to judge with my own eyes of the merits and demerits 
of the play. 

Who does not remember (except those who never saw the drama, 
and therefore of course cannot be expected to have any notion of it) 
—who does not, I say, remember the pathetic acting of Mrs. Keeley 
in the part of Smike, as performed at the Adelphi ; the obstinate 
good-humour of Mr. Wilkinson, who, having to represent the brutal 
Squeers, was, according to his nature, so chuckling, oily, and kind- 
hearted, that little boys must have thought it a good joke to be 
flogged by him ; finally, the acting of the admirable Yates in the 
kindred part of Mantalini 1 Can France, I thought, produce a fop 
equal to Yates 1 Is there any vulgarity and assurance on the 
Boulevard that can be compared to that of which, in the character 
of Mantalini, he gives a copy so wonderfully close to Nature? 
Never then were fifty sous more cheerfully- — nay, eagerly paid, 
than by your obedient servant. 

After China, this is the most ignorant country, thought I, in 
the whole civilised world (the company w’as dropping into the 
theatre, and the musicians were one by one taking their seats) ; 
these people are so immensely conceited, that they think the rest 
of Europe beneath them; and though they have invaded Spain, 
Italy, Russia, , Germany, not one in ten thousand can ask for a piece 
of bread in the national language of the countries so conquered. 
But see the force of genius; after a time it conquers everything, 
even the ignorance and conceit of Frenchmen ! The name of 
Nicholas Nickleby crosses the Channel in spite of them. I shall see 


756 


DICKENS IN FRANCE 


lionest John Browdie and wicked Ralph once more, honest and 
wicked in French. Shall we have the Kenwigses, and their uncle, 
the delightful collector; and will he, in Portsmouth church, make 
that famous marriage with Juliana Petowker? Above all, what 
will Jfrs. Nickleby say ? — the famous Mrs. Nickleby, who has lain 
undescribed until Boz seized upon her and brought that great truth 
to light, and whom yet every man possesses in the bosom of his 
own family. Are there Mrs. Nicklebies — or, to speak more correctly, 
ore there Mistresses Nickleby in France*? "We sliall see all this at 
tlie rising of the curtain ; and hark ! the fiddlers are striking up. 

Presently the prompter gives his three heart-thrilling slaps, and 
the great painted cloth moves upwards ; it is always a moment of 
awe and pleasure. What is coming*? First you get a glimpse of 
legs and feet ; then suddenly the owners of the limbs in question in 
steady attitudes, looking as if they had been there one thousand 
years before ; now behold the landscape, the clouds ; the great 
curtain vanishes altogether, the charm is dissolved, and the disen- 
chanted performers begin. 


Act I 

You see a court of a school, wdth great iron bars in front, and a 
beauteous sylvan landscape beyond. Could you read the writing on 
the large board over the gate, you would know that the school was 
the “ Paradis des Enfans,” kept by Mr. Squeers. Somewhere by 
that bright river, wdiich meanders through the background, is the 
castle of the stately Earl of Clarenolon — no relation to a late am- 
bassador at Madrid. 

His lordship is from liome ; but his young and lovely daughter. 
Miss Annabella, is in Yorkshire, and ‘at this very moment is taking 
a lesson of French from Mr. Squeers’s sous-maitre, Neekolass 
Neeklbee. Nicholas is, however, no vulgar usher; he is but lately 
an orplian ; and his uncle, tlie rich London banker. Monsieur Ralph, 
taking charge of tlie lad’s portionless sister, has procured for 
Nicholas this place of usher at a school in Ic Yorksheer, 

A rich London banker procuring his nephew a place in a school 
at eight gnineas per annum ! Sure there must be some roguery in 
this ; and the more so when you know that Monsieur Squeers, the 
keeper of the academy, was a few years since a vulgar rope-dancer 
and tumbler at a fair. But peace ! let these mysteries clear up, as, 
please Heaven, before five acts are over they will. Meanwdiile 
Nicholas is happy in giving his lessons to the lovely Meess Annabel. 
Lessons, inde'ed ! Lessons of what *? Alack, alack ! when two 
young, handsome, ardent, tender-hearted people pore over the same 


DICKENS IN FRANCE 


757 


book, we know what happens, be the book what it may. French 
or Hebrew, there is always one kind of language in the leaves, as 
those can tell who have conned them. 

Meanwhile, in the absence of his usher. Monsieur Scpieers keeps 
school. But one of his scholars is in the courtyard ; a lad beauti- 
fully dressed, fat, clean, and rosy. A gentleman by the name of 
Browdie, by profession a drover, is with the boy, employed at the 
moment (for he is at leisure and fond of music) in giving him a 
lesson on the clarionet. 

The boy thus receiving lessons is called facetiously by his master 
Pros 2 '>ectus, and why 1 Because he is so excessively fat and healthy, 
and well clothed, that his mere appearance in the courtyard is 
supposed to entice parents and guardians to place their children 
in a seminary Avhere the scholars were in such admirable condition. 

And here I cannot help observing in tlie first place, that Squeers 
exhibiting in this manner a sample-boy, and pretending that the 
whole stock were like him (whereas they are a miserable, half- 
starved set), must have been an abominable old scoundrel ; and, 
secondly (though the observation applies to the French nation 
merely, and may be considered more as political than general), that 
by way of a fat specimen, never was one more unsatisfactory than 
this. Such a poor shrivelled creature I never saw ; it is like a 
French fat pig, as lanky as a greyhound ! Both 'animals give one 
a tliorough contempt for the nation. 

John Browdie gives his lesson to Prospectus, who informs him 
of some of the circumstances narrated above ; and having concluded 
the lesson, honest John produces a piece of 'pudding for his pupil. 
Ah, how Prospectus devours it ! for though the only well-fed boy 
in tlie school, he is, we regret to say, a gormandiser by disposition. 

While Prospectus eats, another of Mr. Squeers’s scholars is 
looking unnoticed on ; aiiotlier boy, a thousand times more miserable. 
See yon poor shivering child, trembling over his book in a miserable 
hutch at the corner of the court. He is in rags, he is not allowed 
to live with the other boys ; at play they constantly buffet him, 
at lesson-time their blunders are visited upon his poor shoulders. 

Wlio is this unhappy boy? Ten years since a man by the 
name of Becher brought him to the Paradis des Enfans ; and pay- 
ing in advance five years of his pension, left him under the charge 
of Monsieur Squeers. No family ever visited the child ; and when 
at the five years’ end the instituteur applied at the acklress given 
him by Becher for the further payment of his pupil’s expenses. 
Monsieur Squeers found that Becher had grossly deceived him, that 
no such persons existed, and that no money was consequently forth- 
coming, hence the misfortunes which afterwards befell the hapless 


758 


DICKENS IN FRANCE 


orphan. None cared for him — none knew him, ’tis possible that 
even the name he went by was fictitious. That name was Smike, 
pronounced Snieek. 

Poor Smeek ! lie liad, however, found one friend, — the kind- 
hearted sous-maitre Neeklbee — who gave him half of his own daily 
])ittance of bread and pudding, encouraged him to apply to his 
books, and defended him as much as possible from the assaults of 
the schoolboys and Monsieur Squeers. 

John Browdie had just done giving his lesson of clarionet to 
Prospectus, when Neeklbee arrived at the school. There was a 
difference between John and Nicholas ; for the former, seeing the 
young usher’s frequent visits at Clarendon Castle, foolishly thought 
lie was enamoured of Meess Jenny, the fermier’s daughter, on whom 
John too had fixed an eye of affection. Silly John ! Nicholas’s 
heart was fixed (hopelessly as the young man thought) upon higher 
objects. However, the very instant that Nickleby entered the 
courtyard of tlie school, John took up his stick and set off for 
London, whither he was bound, with a drove of oxen. 

Nickleby liad not arrived a whit too soon to protect his poor 
friend Smeek; all the boys were called into the courtyard by 
Monsieur Squarrs, and made to say their lessons ; when it came to 
poor Smeek’s turn, the timid lad trembled, hesitated, and could not 
do his spelling. ” 

Inflamed with fury, old Squarrs rushe^l forward, and would have 
assoninu^d his pupil, but human nature could bear this tyranny no 
longer. Nickleby, stepping forward, defended the poor prostrate 
child ; and when Squeers raised his stick to strike — pouf ! xdf 1 un, 
deux, trois, et la ! — Monsieur Nicholas flanqudd him several coups 
de poing, and sent him bientot grovelling k terre. 

You may be sure that there was now a pretty hallooing among 
the boys; all jumped, kicked, thumped, bumped, and scratched 
their unhappy master (and serve him right, too !), and when they 
had finished their fun, vlan ! flung open the gates of the Infants’ 
Paradise and run away home. 

Neeklbee, seeing what he had done, had nothing left but to 
run away too : he penned a hasty line to his lovely pupil. Miss 
Annabel, to explain that though his departure was sudden his 
honour was safe, and seizing his stick quitted the school. 

Tiiere was but one pupil left in it, and he, poor soul, knew not 
whither to go. But when he saw Nicholas, his sole fiiend, depart- 
ing, he mustered courage, and then made a step forward — and then 
wondered if he dared — and then, when Nicholas was at a little 
distance from him, ran, ran, as if his life (as indeed it did) 
depended upon it. 


DICKENS IN FRANCE 


759 


This is the picture of Neeklbee and poor Smeek.* They are • 
both dressed in the English fashion, and you must fancy the 
curtain falling amidst thunders of applause. [^End of Act I. 

“ Ah, ah, ah ! ouf, pouf.” — “ Dieu, qu’il fait chaud ! ” — 

“ Orgeat, limonade, bike ! ” — “ L’Entracte, journal de tons les 
spectacles ! ” — “ La Marseillai-ai-aise ! ” — with such cries from 
pit and boxes the public wiles away the weary ten minutes between 
the acts. The three bonnes in the front boxes, who had been 
escorted by a gentleman in a red cap, and jacket, and earrings, 
begin sucking oranges with great comfort, while their friend amuses 
himself with a piece of barley-sugar. Tlie petite-maUresse in the 
private box smoothes her bandeaux of hair and her little trim, 
white cuffs, and looks at her chiffons. The friend of the tight black 
velvet spencer, meanw’hile, pulls his yellow kid gloves tighter on his 
handt, and looks superciliously round the house with his double- 
glass. Fourteen people, all smelling of smoke, all bearded, and all 
four feet high, pass over your body to their separate stalls. The 
prompter gives his thumps, whack — whack — whack ! the music 
begins again, the curtain draws, and, lo ! we have — 


Act II 

The tavern of Les Armes du Roi appears to be one of the 
most frequented in the city of London. It must be in the York- 
shire road, that is clear ; for the first person whom we see there is 
John Browdie ; to whom presently comes Prospectus, then Neeklbee, 
then poor Smeek, each running away individually from the Paradis 
des Enfans. 

It is likewise at this tavern that the great banker Ralph does 
his business, and lets you into a number of his secrets. Hither, 
too, comes Milor Clarendon, — a handsome peer, forsooth, but a 
sad reprobate I fear. Sorrow has driven him to these wretched 
courses : ten years since he lost a son, a lovely child of six years 
of age; and, hardened by the loss, lie has taken to gambling, 
to the use of the vins de France which take the reason jirisoner, 
and to other excitements still more criminal. He has cast his 
eyes upon the lovely Kate Nickleby (he, the father of Miss 
Annabel !), and asks the banker to sup with him, to lend him 
ten thousand pounds, and to bring his niece with him. With 
every one of these requests the capitalist promises to comply : the 
money he produces forthwith ; the lady he goes to fetch. Ah, 

* Alluding to a sketch, the first of two sketches by the author, which 
accompanied this paper on its original appearance in Fraser's Magazine. 


760 


DICKENS IN FRANCE 


milor ! beware — beware, your health is bad, your property is ruined, 
— death and insolvency stare you in the face, — but what cares Lor 
Clarendon ? He is desperate : he orders a splendid repast in a 
private apartment, and while they are getting it ready, he and the 
young lords of his acquaintance sit down and crack a bottle in the 
coffee-room. A gallant set of gentlemen truly, all in short coats 
with capes to them, in tights and Hessian boots, such as our nobility 
are in the custom of wearing. 

“ I bet you cinq cent guindes. Lor Beef,” says Milor Clarendon 
(whom the wine has begun to excite), “ that I will have the lovely 
Kate Nicklbee at supper with us to-night.” 

“ Done ! ” says Lor Beef. But why starts yon stranger who 
has just come into the hotel? Why, forsooth? because he is 
Nicholas Nickleby, Kate’s brother ; and a pretty noise he makes 
when he hears of his lordship’s project ! 

“You have Meess Neeklbee at your table, sir? You are a 
liar ! ” 

All the lords start up. 

“Who is this very strange person?” says Milor Clarendon, as 
cool as a cucumber. 

“ Dog ! give me your name ! ” shouts Nicholas. 

“ Ha ! ha ! ha ! ” says my lord scornfully. 

“John,” says Nickleby, seizing hold of a waiter, “tell me that 
man’s name.” 

John the waiter looks frightened, and hums and haws, when, 
at the moment, who should walk in but Mr. Ralph the banker, and 
his niece. 

Raljjh. “ Nicholas ! — confusion ! ” 

Kate. “ My brother ! ” 

Kicholas. “Avaunt, woman! Tell me, sirrah, by what right 
you bring my sister into such company, and who is the villain to 
whom you have presented her ? ” 

Ralph. “ Lord Clarendoji.” 

Xicholas. “ The father of Meess Annabel ? Gracious heav^en 1 ” 

What followed now need not be explained. The young lords 
and the banker retire abashed to their supper, while Meess Kate, 
and Smike, who luas just arrived, fall into the arms of Nicholas. 

Such, ladies and gentlemen, is the second act, rather feeble in 
interest, and not altogether probable in action. That five people 
running away from Yorkshire should all come to jthe same inn in 
London, arriving within five minutes of each other — that Mr. Ralph, 
the great banker, should make the hotel his place of business, ami 
openly confess in the coffee-room to his ex-agent Becher that he had 
caused Becher to make away with or murder the son of Lord 


DICKENS IN FRANCE 


761 


Clarendon, — finally, that Lord Clarendon himself, with an elegant 
town mansion, should receive his distinguished guests in a tavern, 
of not the first respectability, — all these points may, perhaps, 
strike the critic from their extreme improbability. But, bless 
your soul ! if the%e are improbabilities, what will you say to the 
revelations of the 


Tried Act 

That scoundrel Squarrs before he kept the school was, as we 
have seen, a tumbler and saltimhanque, and, as such, member of 
the great fraternity of cadgers, beggars, gueux, thieves, that have 
their club in London. It is held in immense Gothic vaults under 
ground : here the beggars concert their plans, divide their spoil, and 
hold their orgies. 

In returning to London, Monsieur Squarrs instantly resumes 
his acquaintance with his old comrades, who appoint him, by the 
all-powerful interest of a head of the community 

of cadgers. 

That person is no other than the banker Ralph, who, in secret, 
directs this godless crew, visits their haunts, and receives from them 
a boundless obedience. A villain himself, he has need of the aid 
of villainy. He pants for vengeance against his nephew, he has 
determined that his niece shall fall a prey to Milor Clarendon, — 
nay, more, Jie has a dark suspicion that Smike — the orphan boy — 
the homeless fugitive from Yorkshire — is no other than the child 
who ten years ago — but, hush ! 

Where is his rebellious nephew and those whom he protects ? 
The quick vigilance of Ralph soon discovered them ; Nicholas, 
having taken the name of Edward Browne, was acting at a theatre 
in the neighbourhood of the Thames. Haste, Squarrs, take a couple 
of trusty beggars with you, and hie thee to Wapping; seize young 
Smike and carry him to Cadger’s Cavern,— haste, then! The 
mind shudders to consider wdiat is to happen. 

In Nicholas’s room at the theatre we find his little family assem- 
bled, and with them honest John Browdie, who has forgotten his 
part on learning that Nicholas was attached, not to the fermiere, but 
to the mistress; to them comes — gracious heavens! — Meess Annabel. 
“Ely,” says she, “fly! I have overheard a plot concocted between 
my father and your uncle ; the sheriflF is to seize you for the abduc- 
tion of Smeek and the assault upon Squarrs,” &c. &c. &c. 

In short, it is quite impossible to describe this act, so much is 
there done in it. Lord Clarendon learns that he has pledged his 
life-interest in his estates to Ralph. 


762 


DICKENS IN FRANCE 


His lordship dies^ and Ralph seizes a paper, which proves 
beyond a doubt that young Smike is no other than Clarendon’s 
long-lost son. 

L' infame Squarrs with his satellites carry off the boy ; Browdie 
pitches Squarrs into the river ; the sheriff carries Nickleby to 
prison ; and Vice triumphs in the person of the odious Ralph. 
But Vice does not always triumph ; wait awhile and you will 
see. For in the 


Fourth Act 

John Browdie, determined to rescue his two young friends, follows 
Ralph like his shadow; he dogs him to a rendezvous of the 
beggars, and overhears all his conversation with Squarrs. The 
boy is in the Cadger’s Cavern, hidden a thousand feet below the 
Thames ; there is to be a grand jollification among the rogues that 
night — -a dance and a feast. “ /,” says John Browdie, “ will he 
there” And, wonderful to say, who should pass but his old friend 
Prospectus, to whom he gave lessons on the clarionet. 

Prospectus is a cadger now, and is to play liis clarionet that 
night at Cadger’s Hall. Browdie will join him,— he is dressed up 
like a blind beggar, and strange sights, heaven knows, meet his eyes 
in Cadger’s Hall. 

Here they come trooping in by scores, — the halt and the lame, 
black sweepers, one-legged fiddlers, the climber mots, the fly-sakers, 
the kedgoree coves, — in a word, the rogues of London, to their 
Gothic hall, a thousand miles below the level of the sea. Squarrs 
is their nominal head ; but their real leader is the tall man yonder 
in the black mask, he whom nobody knows but Browdie, who lias 
found him out at once, — ’tis Ralph ! 

“Bring out the prisoner,” says the black mask; “he has tried 
to escape — he has broken his oaths to the cadgers, let him meet his 
punishment.” 

And without a word more, what do these cadgers do? They 
take poor Smike and bury him alive ; down he goes into the vault, 
a stone is rolled over him, the cadgers go away, — so much for 
Smike. 

But in the meantime Master Browdie has not been idle. He 
has picked the pocket of one of the cadgers of a portfolio containing 
papers that prove Smike to be Lord Clarendon beyond a doubt ; he 
lags behind until all the catlgers are gone, and with tlie help of 
Nicholas (who, by-the-bye, has found his way somehow into the 
place), he pushes away the stone, and brings the fainting boy to 
the world. 


DICKENS IN FRANCE 


763 


These things are improbable you certainly may say, but are 
they impossible? If they are possible, then they may come to 
pass ; if they may come to pass, then they may be supposed to 
come to pass : and why should they not come to pass ? That is 
my argument : let us pass on to the 

Fifth Act 

Aha ! Master Ralph, you think you will have it all your own ‘ 
way, do you ? The lands of Clarendon are yours, provided there is 
no male heir, and you have done for him. The peerage, to be sure 
(by tlie laws of England), is to pass to the husband of Meess 
Annabella. Will she marry Ralph or not ? Yes ; then well and 
good ; he is an earl for the future and the father of a new race of 
Clarendon. No : then, in order to spell her still more, he has 
provided amongst the beggars a lad who is to personate the young 
mislaid Lord Clarendon, who is to come armed with certain papers 
that make his right unquestionable, and wdio will be a creature of 
Ralph’s, to be used or cast away at will. 

Ralph pops the question; the lady repels him with scorn. 

“ Quit the house, Meess,” says he ; “ it is not yours, but mine. 
Give up that vain title which you have adopted since your papa’s 
death ; you are no countess, — your brother lives. Ho ! John, 
Thomas, Samuel ! introduce his lordship, the Comte de Clarendon.” 

And who slips in? Why, in a handsome new dress, in the 
English fashion, Smike, to be sure — the boy whom Ralph has 
murdered — the boy who had risen from the tomb — the boy who 
had miraculously discovered the papers in Cadger’s Hall and (by 
some underhand work that went on behind the scenes, which I 
don’t pretend to understand) had substituted himself for the sub- 
stitute which that wicked banker had proposed to bring forwTird ! . 
A rush of early recollections floods the panting heart of tlie young 
boy. Can it be ? Yes — no ; sure these halls are familiar to him ? 
That conservatory, has he not played with the flowers there — played 
with his blessed mother at his side? That portrait ! Stop ! a — a 
— a — a — ah ! it is — it is my sister Anna — Anna — bella ! 

Fancy the scene as the two young creatures rush with a scream 
into each other’s arms. Fancy John Browdie’s hilarity : he jumps 
for joy, and throws off his beggar’s cloak and beard. Nicholas 
clasps his hands, and casts his fine eyes heavenward. But, above 
all, fancy the despair of that cursed banker Ralph as he sees his 
victim risen from the grave, and all his hopes dashed down into 
it. Oh ! Heaven, Thy hand is here ! How must the banker then 
have repented of his bargain with the late Lord. Clarendon, and 


764 


DICKENS IN FRANCE 


that he had not had liis lordship’s life insured ! Perdition ! to 
have been out-tricked by a boy and a country boor ! Is there no 
hope? . . . 

Hope 1 Psha ! man, thy reign of vice is over, — it is the fifth 
act. Already the people are beginning to leave the house, and 
never more again canst thou expect to lift thy head. 

“ Monsieur Ralph,” Browdie whispers, “ after your pretty doings 
in Cadger’s Hall, had you not best be thinking of leaving the 
country ? As Nicholas Nickleby’s uncle, I would fain not see you, 
crick ! You understand ? ” (pointing to his jugular). 

“ I do,” says Ralph gloomily, “ and will be off in two hours.” 
And Lord Smike takes honest Browdie by one hand, gently j^ressing 
Kate’s little fingers with the other, and the sheriff, and the footmen, 
and attendants form a tableau, and the curtain begins to fall, and 
the blushing Annabel whispers to happy Nicholas, — -“Ah! my 
friend, I can give up with joy to my brother ma couronne de 
comtesse. AVhat care I for rank or name with you ? the name that 
I love above all others is that of Lady Annabel Nickleby.” 

'[Exeunt omnes. 

The musicians have hurried off long before this. In one instant 
the stage lamps go out, and you see fellows starting forward to 
cover the boxes Avith canvas. Up goes the cliandelier amongst the 
gods and goddesses painted on the ceiling. Those in the galleries, 
meanwhile, bellow out “ Saint Ernest ! ” he it is who acted John 
Browdie. Then there is a yell of “ Smeek ! Smeek ! ” Blushing 
and bowing, Madame Prosper comes forward ; by Heavens ! a 
pretty woman, with tender eyes and a fresh, clear voice. Next 
the gods call for “ Chilly ! ” Avho acted the villain : but by this 
time you are bustling and struggling among the crowd in the lobbies, 
wliere there is the usual odour of garlic and tobacco. Men in 
sabots come tumbling down from the galleries; cries of ^‘Auguste, 
solo I Eugenie ! prends ton “ Monsieur, vous me 

marchez sur les pieds,’’^ are heard in the crowd, over which the 
brazen helmets of the Pompier’s toAver are shining. A cabman in 
the Boulevard, who opens his veliicle eagerly as you pass by, growls 
dreadful oaths when, seated inside, you politely request him to 
drive to the Barrifere de I’Etoile. “ Ah, ces Anglais,''^ says he, “ ga 
demeure dans les deserts — daiis les dherts, grand Dieu I avec les 
louj^s ; Us jwennent leur beautyfine the avec leurs tartines le soir, 
et 27uis Us se couchent dans les deserts, ma jyarole d'honneur ; 
commes des Arabes.^^ 

If the above explanation of the plot of the new piece of Nicholas 
Nickleby ” has appeared intolerably long to these few persons who 


DICKENS IN FRANCE 


765 


have perused it, I can only say for their comfort that I have not 
told one half of the real plot of the piece in question ■ nay, very 
likely have passed over all the most interesting j)art of it. There, 
for instance, was the assassination of the virtuous villain Becher, 
the dying scene with my lord, the manner in which Nicholas got 
into the Cadger’s Cave, and got out again. Have I breathed a 
syllable upon any of these points'? No; and never will to my 
dying day. The imperfect account of “ Nicholas Nickleby ” given 
above is all that the most impatient reader (let him have fair warn- 
ing) can expect to hear from his humble servant. Let it be suffi- 
cient to know that the piece in itself contains a vast number of 
beauties entirely passed over by the unworthy critic, and only to 
be appreciated by any gentleman who will take the trouble to step 
across the Channel, and thence from his hotel to the ambiguously- 
comic theatre. And let him make haste, too ; for who knows wliat 
may happen "? Human life is proverbially short. Theatrical pieces 
bloom and fade like the flowers of the field, and very likely long 
before this notice shall appear in print (as let us heartily, from 
mercenary considerations, pray that it will), the drama of “ Nicholas 
Nickleby ” may have disappeared altogether from the world’s ken, 
like Carthage, Troy, Swallow Street, the Marylebone bank, Babylon, 
and other fond magnificences elevated by men, and now forgotten 
and prostrate. 

As for the worthy Boz, it will be seen that Ats share in the 
piece is perfectly insignificant, and that he has no more connection 
witli the noble geniuses who invented the drama than a peg has 
with a gold-laced hat that a nobleman may have hung on it, or a 
starting-post on the race-course with some magnificent thousand- 
guinea fiery horses who may choose to run from it. How poor do 
his writings appear after those of the Frenchman ! How feeble, 
mean, and destitute of imagination ! He never would have thought 
of introducing six lords, an ex-kidnapper, a great banker, an idiot, 
a schoolmaster, his usher, a cattle-driver, coming for the most part 
a couple of hundred miles, in order to lay open all their secrets in 
the coffee-room of the King’s Arms hotel ! He never could have 
invented the great subterraneous cavern, cimetiere et mile de bal^ 
as Jules Janin calls it ! The credit of all this falls upon the French 
adapters of Monsieur Dickens’s romance ; and so it will be advisable 
to let the public know. 

But as the French play-writers are better than Dickens, being 
incomparably more imaginative and poetic, so, in progression, is the 
French critic, Jules Janin, above named, a million times superior 
to the French playwrights, and, after Janin, Dickens disappears 
altogether. He is cut up, disposed of, done for. J. J. has hacked 


766 


DICKENS IN FRANCE 


him into small pieces, and while that wretched romancer is amusing 
himself across the Atlantic, and fancying, perhaps, that he is a 
popular character, his business has been done for ever and ever in 
Europe. What matters that he is read by millions in England 
and billions in America 1 that everybody who understands English 
has a corner in his heart for him ] The great point is, what does 
Jules Janin think ? and that we shall hear presently ; for though 
I profess the greatest admiration for Mr. Dickens, yet there can 
be no reason why one should deny one’s self the little pleasure of 
acquainting him that some ill-disposed persons in the world are 
inclined to abuse him. Without this privilege what is friendship 
good for'? 

Who is Jailin'? He is the critic of France. J. J., in fact, — 
the man who writes a weekly feuilleton in the Journal des Dehats 
with such indisputable brilliancy and wit, and such a happy mixture 
of effrontery, and honesty, and poetry, and impudence, and falsehood, 
and impertinence, and good feeling, that one can’t fail to be charmed 
with the compound, and to look rather eagerly for the Monday’s 
paper;— Jules Janin is the man, who, not knowing a single word of 
the English language, as he actually professes in the preface, has 
helped to translate the “ Sentimental Journey.” He is the man who, 
when he was married (in a week when news were slack no doubt), 
actually criticised his own. marriage ceremony, letting all the 
public see the proof-sheets of his bridal, as was the custom among 
certain ancient kings, I believe. In fact, a more modest, honest, 
unassuming, blushing, truth-telling, gentlemanlike J. J. it is im- 
possible to conceive. 

Well, he has fallen foul of Monsieur Dickens, this fat French 
moralist; he says Dickens is immodest, and Jules cannot abide 
immodesty ; and a great and conclusive proof this is upon a question 
which the two nations have been in the habit of arguing, namely, 
winch of the two is the purer in morals '? and may be argued clear 
thus : — 

1. We in England are accustomed to think Dickens modest, 
and allow our children to peruse his works. 

2. In France the man who wrote the history of “ The Dead 
Donkey and the Guillotined Woman,” * and afterwards his own 
epithalamium in the newspaper, is revolted by Dickens. 

3. Therefore Dickens must be immodest, and grossly immodest, 
otherwise a person so confessedly excellent as J. J. would never 
have discovered the crime. 

4. And therefore it is pretty clear that tlie French morals are 

* Some day the writer meditates a great and splendid review of J. J.’s 
work. 


DICKENS IN FRANCE 


767 

of a much higher order than our own, which remark will apply to 
persons and books, and all the relations of private and public life. 

Let us now see how our fat Jules attacks Dickens. His 
remarks on him begin in the following jocular way : — 


“ Theatre de l’Ambigu-Comique. 

“ ‘ Nicholas Nickleby,’ M^lodrame, en Six Actes. 

“ A genoux devant celui-lk qui s’appelle Charles Dickens ! h, 
genoux ! II a accompli k lui seul ce que n’ont pu faire k eux deux 
lord Byron et Walter Scott ! Joignez-y, si vous voulez. Pope et 
Milton et tout ce que la littdrature Anglaise a produit de plus 
solennel et de plus charmant. Charles Dickens ! mais il n’est 
question que de lui en Angleterre. II en est la gloire, et la joie, et 
Forgueil ! Savez-vous combien d’acheteurs possMe ce Dickens ; j’ai 
dit d’acheteurs, de gens qui tirent leur argent de leur bourse pour 
que cet argent passe de leur main dans la main du libraire ? — Dix 
mille acheteurs. Dix mille 'I que disons-nous, dix mille ! vingt mi lie ! 
— Yingt mille 1 Quoi ! vingt mille acheteurs ? — Fi done, vingt 
mille ! quarante mille acheteurs. — Et quoi ! il a trouv^ quarante 
mille acheteurs, vous vous moquez de nous sans doute ? — Oui, mon 
brave homme, on se moque de vous, car ce n’est pas vingt mille et 
quarante mille et soixante mille acheteurs qu’a rencontres ce Charles 
Dickens, e’est cent mille acheteurs. Cent mille, pas un de moins. 
Cent mille esclaves, cent mille tributaires, cent mille ! Et nos 
grands ecrivains modernes s’estiment bien heureux et bien fiers 
quand leur livre le plus vante parvient, au bout de six mois de 
cdiebrite, k son huitieme cent ! ” 

There is raillery for you ! there is a knowledge of English 
literature, of “ Pope et Milton, si solennel et si charmant ! ” Milton, 
above all ; his little com^die “ Samson I’Agoniste ” is one of the 
gayest and most graceful trifles that ever was acted on the stage. 
And to think that Dickens has sold more copies of his 'work than 
the above two eminent hommes-de-lettres, and Scott and Byron into 
the bargain ! It is a fact, and J. J. vouches for it. To be sure, J. 
J. knows no more of English literature than I do of hieroglyphics, — 
to be sure, he has not one word of English. N’importe : he has had 
the advantage of examining the books of Mr. Dickens’s publishers, 
and has discovered that they sell of Boz’s works “ cent-mille pas un 
de moins” Janin will not allow of one less. Can you answer 
numbers 1 And there are our gra-nds dcrivains modernes, wdio are 
happy if they sell eight hundred in six months. Byron and Scott 
doubtless, “le solennel Pope, et le charmant Milton,” as well as 


768 


DICKENS IN FRANCE 


other geniuses not belonging to the three kingdoms. If a man is an 
arithmetician as well as a critic, and he join together figures of 
speech and Arabic numerals, there is no knowing what he may 
not prove. 

“ (9r,” continues J. J. : — 

“ Or, parmi les chefs-d’oeuvre de sa facon que d^vore FAngle- 
terre, ce Charles Dickens a produit un gros mdlodrame en deux 
gros volumes, intitule “Nicolas Nickleby.” Ce livre a traduit 
chez nous par im hpmme de beaucoup d’esprit, qui n’est pas fait 
pour ce triste m4tier-lk. Si vous saviez ce que peut etre un 
pareil chef-d’oeuvre, certes vous prendriez en piti4 les susdits 
cent inille souscripteurs de Charles Dickens. Figurez-vous done 
un anias d’inventions pudriles, oil I’horrible et le niais se donnent 
la main, dans une ronde infernale ; ici passent en riant de bonnes 
gens si bons qu’ils en sont tout-k-fait betes ; plus loin bondissent 
et blasphkment toutes sortes de bandits, de fripons, de voleurs 
et de misdnrbles si affreux qu’on ne salt pas comment pourrait 
vivre, seulement vingt-quatre heures, une socidtd ainsi compos^e. 
C’est le plus nausdabond melange ciu’on puisse imaginer de lait 
chaud et de bikre tournee, d’oeufs frais et de boeuf sal^, de 
haillons et d’habits brod^s, d’^cus d’or et de gros sous, de roses 
et de pissenlits. On se bat, on s’embrasse, on s’injurie, on 
s’enivre, on meurt de faim. Les filles de la rue et les lords de 
la Chambre haute, les porte-faix et les poetes, les ^coliers et les 
voleurs, se prominent, bras dessus bras dessous, au milieu de ce 
tohubohu insupportable. Aimez-vous la fumde de tabac, I’odeur 
de Tail, le gout du pore frais, I’harmonie que fait un plat d’etain 
frapp^ centre une casserole de cuivre non dtamel Lisez-moi 
consciencieusenient ce livre de Cliarles Dickens. Quelles plaies ! 
quelles pustules ! et que de saintes vertus ! Ce Dickens a r^uni 
en bloc toutes les descriptions de Cuzman d’Alfarache et tons 
les reves de Grandisson. Oh ! qu’etes-vous devenus, vous les 
lectrices taut soit pen prudes des romans de Walter Scott ? 
Oh ! qu’a-t-on fait de vous, les lectrices animees de “ Don Juan ” 
et de “ Lara ”1 0 vous, les chastes enthousiastes de la “ Clarisse 

Harlowe,” voilez-vous la face de honte ! A cent inille exemplaires 
le Charles Dickens ! ” 

To what a pitch of devergondage must the English ladies have 
arrived, when a fellow who can chronicle his own marriage, and 
write “The Dead Donkey and the Guillotined Woman,” — when even 
a man like that, whom nobody can accuse of being squeamish, is 
obliged to turn away with disgust at their monstrous immodesty ! 

J. J. is not difficult ; a little harmless gallantry and trifling 
with the seventh commandment does not offend him, — far from 


DICKENS IN FRANCE 


769 

it. Because there are no love-intrigues in Walter Scott, Jules 
says that Scott’s readers are tant soil p7'udes ! There ought 
to be, in fact, in life and in novels, a little, pleasant, gentlemanlike, 
anti-seventh-cx)mmandment excitement. Read “ The Dead Donkey 
and the Guillotined Woman,” and you will see how the thing may 
be agreeably and genteelly done. See what he says of “ Clarissa,” — 
it is chaste ; of “Don Juan,” — it is not indecent, it is not immoral, 
it is only animee ! Animde ! 0 ciel ! what a word ! Could any 
but a Frenchman have had the grace to hit on iti “Animation” 
our Jules can pardon ; prudery he can excuse, in his good-humoured 
contemptuous way ; but Dickens — this Dickens, — 0 fie ! And, 
perhaps, there never was a more succinct, complete, elegant, just, 
and satisfactory account given of a book than that by our friend 
Jules of “ Nicholas Nickleby.” “ It is the most disgusting mixture 
imaginable of warm milk and sour beer, of fresh eggs and salt beef, 
of rags and laced clothes, of gold crowns and coppers, of rose and 
dandelions.” 

There is a receipt for you ! or take another, which is quite as 
pleasant : — 


II 

“The fumes of tobacco, the odour of garlic, the taste of fresh 
pork, the harmony made by striking a pewter plate against an 
untinned copper saucepan. Read me conscientiously this book 
of Charles Dickens ; what sores ! what pustules ! ” &c. 

Try either mixture (and both are curious),- — for fresh pork is 
an ingredient in one, salt beef in another ; tobacco and garlic in 
receipt No. 2 agreeably take the places of warm milk and sour 
beer in formula No. I ; and whereas, in the second prescription, 
a i^ewter plate and untinned copper saucepan (what a devilish 
satire in that epithet untinned!), a gold crown and a few half- 
pence, answer in the first. Take either mixture, and the result 
is a Dickens. Hang thyself, thou unhappy writer of “ Pickwick ” ; 
or, blushing at this exposition of thy faults, turn red man altogether, 
and build a wigwam in a wilderness, and live with ’possums up 

gum-trees. Fresh pork and warm milk ; sour beer and salt b 

Faugh ! how could you serve us so atrociously '? 

And this is one of the “ chefs-d’oeuvre de sa fa^on que d^vore 
I’Angleterre.” The beastly country ! How Jules lashes the islanders 
with the sting of that epigram — chef s-d^ oeuvre de leur faQon ! 


Look you, J. J., it is time that such impertinence should cease. 
Will somebody — out of three thousand literary men in France, 
5 3 c 


770 


DICKENS IN FRANCE 


there are about three who have a smattering of the English — will 
some one of the three explain to J. J. the enormous folly and false- 
hood of all that the fellow has been saying about Dickens and 
English literature generally? We have in England literary chef&- 
cVoeuvre de notre faQon, and are by no means ashamed to devour 
the same. “ Le Charmant Milton ” was not, perhaps, very skilled 
for making epigrams and chansons-k-boire, but, after all, was a 
person of merit, and of his works have been sold considerably 
more than eight hundred copies. “ Le solennel Pope” was a 
writer not undeserving of praise. There must have been something 
worthy in Shakspeare, — for his name has penetrated even to 
France, where he is not unfrequently called “le Sublime AVilliams.” 
Walter Scott, though a prude, as you say, and not having the 
agreeable laisser-aller of the author of the “ Dead Donkey,” &c., 
could still turn off a romance pretty creditably. He and “le 
Sublime Williams ” between them have turned your French litera- 
ture topsy-turvy ; and many a live donkey of your crew is trying 
to imitate their paces and their roars, and to lord it like those dead 
lions. These men made chefs-d'oeuvre de notre fagon^ and we are 
by no means ashamed to acknowledge them. 

But what right have you, 0 blundering ignoramus ! to pretend 
to judge them and their works, — you, who might as well attempt 
to give a series of lectures upon the literature of the Hottentots, 
and are as ignorant of English as the author of the “ Random 
Recollections ” ? Learn modesty, Jules ; listen to good advice ; and 
when you say to other persons, lisez moi ce livre consciencieusement^ 
at least do the same thing, 0 critic ! before you attempt to judge 
and arbitrate. 

And I am ready to take an affidavit in the matter of this 
criticism of “ Nicholas Nickleby,” that the translator of Sterne, 
who does not know English, has not read Boz in the original — - 
has not even read him in the translation, and slanders him out of 
pure invention. Take these concluding opinions of J. J. as a 
proof of the fact : — 

“ De ce roman de “ Nicolas Nickleby ” a ^t^ tir^ le m^lodrame 
qui va suivre. Commencez d’abord par entasser les souterrains sur 
les t^nbbres, le vice sur le sang, le mensonge sur I’injure, Vadidtere 
sur Vinceste^ battez-moi tout ce melange, et vous verrez ce que vous 
allez voir. 

“Dans un comtd Anglais, dans une 4cole, ou plutot dans une 
horrible prison habitde par le froid et la faim, un nomine Squeers 
entraine, sous pr^texte de les Clever dans la belle discipline, tons 
les enfans qu’on lui confie. Ce miserable Squeers spdcule tout 
simplement sur la faim, sur la soif, sur les habits de ces pauvres 


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771 


petits. On ii’entend que le bruit des verges, les soiipirs des battiis, 
les cris des battans, les blasphemes du maitre. C’est affreux h lire 
et h voir. Surtout ce qiii fait peur (je parle du livre eii ques- 
tion), c’est la mis^re d’lm pauvre petit nomine Smike, dont cet 
aftreux Squeers est le bourreau. Quand parut le livre de Charles 
Dickens, on raconte que plus d’lm maitre de pension de I’Angleterre 
se rdcria contre la calomnie. Mais, juste ciel ! si la cent millieme 
partie d’lme pareille honte dtait possible ; s’il dtait vrai qu’un 
seul marchand de chair humaine ainsi bati put exister de I’autre 
cote du detroit ce serait le deshonneur d’une nation tout entiere. 
Et si en effet la chose est impossible, que venez-vous done nous 
conter, que le roman, tout comme la comedie, est la peinture 
des moeurs 1 

“ Or ce petit malheureux convert de haillons et de plaies, le 
jouet de M. Squeers, c’est tout simplement le fils unique de Lord 
Clarendon, un des plus grands seigneurs de I’Angleterre. Voila 
justement ce que je disais tout k I’heure. Dans ces romans qui 
sont le rebut d’une imagination en ddlire, il n’y a pas de miliee, 
Ou bien vous etes le dernier des mendians charges d’une besacc' 
vide, ou bien, salut k vous ! vous §tes due et pair du royaume et 
chevalier de le Jarre tik’e ! Ou le manteau royal ou le haillon. 
Quelquefois, pour varier la these, on vous met par dessus vos 
haillons le manteau de pourpre. — Votre tete est pleine de vermine, 
k la bonne heure ! mais laissez faire le romancier, il posera tout k 
I’heiire sur vos immondes cheveux, la couronne ducale. Ainsi proefe- 
dent M. Dickens et le Capitaine Marryat et tons les autres.” 

Here we have a third receipt for the confection of “ Nicholas 
Nickleby ” — darkness and caverns, vice and blood, incest and adultery, 
“ hattez-moi tout pa,” and the thing is done. Considering that Mr. 
Dickens has not said a word about darkness, about caverns, about 
blood (further than a little harmless claret drawn from Squeers’s 
nose), about the two other crimes mentioned by J. J.,^ — is it not de 
luxe to put them into the N ickleby -receipt ? Having read the 
romances of his own country, and no others, J. J. thought he was 
safe, no doubt, in introducing the last-named ingredients ; but in 
England the people is still taut soit peu prudes^ and will have none 
such fare. In what a luxury of filth, too, does this delicate critic 
indulge ! votre tete est pleine de vermine (a flattering supposition 
for the French reader, by the way, and remarkable for its polite 
propriety). Your head is in this condition ; but never mind ; let 
the romancer do his work, and he will presently place upon your 
filthy hair (kind again) the ducal coronet. This is the way with 
Monsieur Dickens, Captain Marryat, and the others. 

With whom, in Heaven’s name % What has poor Dickens ever 


772 


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liad to do with ducal crowns, or with the other ornaments of the 
kind which Monsieur Jules distributes to his friends? Tell lies 
about men, friend Jules, if you will, but not such lies. See, for 
the future, that they have a greater likeliliood about them ; and 
try, at least, when you are talking of propriety and decency of 
behaviour, to have your words somewhat more cleanly, and your 
own manners as little offensive as possible. 

And with regard to the character of Squeers, the impossibility 
of it, and the consequent folly of placing such a portrait in a work 
that pretends to be a painting of manners, that, too, is a falsehood 
like the rest. Such a disgrace to human nature not only existed, 
but existed in J. J.’s country of France. Who does not remember 
the history of the Boulogne schoolmaster, a year since, whom the 
newspapers called the “ Frencli Squeers ” ; and about the same time, 
in the neighbourhood of Paris, there was a case still more atrocious, 
of a man and his wife who farmed some score of children, subjected 
them to ill-treatment so horrible that only J. J. himself, in his 
nastiest fit of indignation, could describe it ; and ended by murder- 
ing one or two, and starving all. The whole story was in the 
Debats^ J. J.’s own newspaper, where the accomplished critic may 
read it. 


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